


Do Your Eyes Deceive You? (Do My Eyes Betray Me?)

by Aluxra



Category: Castlevania (Cartoon)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Castlevania Season 3 Spoilers, Communication, Communication Failure, Disassociation, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, Mildly Dark Humour, Misunderstandings, Multi, Post-Season/Series 03 Fix-It, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reconciliation, Recovery, Self-Blame, Self-Doubt, Vague Medical Procedures, Victim Blaming, Vomiting, Whump, eventual OT3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:41:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23096512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aluxra/pseuds/Aluxra
Summary: Trevor and Sypha hear some disturbing rumours of what sits at the steps of Dracula's castle, and by extension the grounds of the ruins of Belmont Estate. They return to the castle to investigate if the rumours are true and if they are dealing with the return of Dracula in the form of his son.
Relationships: Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya & Trevor Belmont & Sypha Belnades, Alucard | Adrian Tepes | Arikado Genya/Trevor Belmont/Sypha Belnades
Comments: 195
Kudos: 554





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> So, we all agree we gotta fix what happened, yeah?
> 
> Cool, all in agreement. 
> 
> Here's my take on it: it gets worse before it gets better, but it will get better. I don't plan on this fic to be very long, 5-10 chapters at most, but even the best laid plans go awry (especially when it comes to me writing fic). I rated this as mature due to the description of corpses impaled on spikes and further themes of PTSD and the affect of Alucard's assault arising in later chapters. It is very unlikely that there will be any smut in this fic, sorry.
> 
> Enjoy the angst x

The Belmont estate still lay several miles down the road, yet the dark silhouette of Dracula’s castle towered above the treeline. Its black needle spires pierced the sky's changing soft pink hues that shifted across the clouds, the sun slowly descending towards the horizon and quietly lengthening the shadows preceding Trevor and Sypha’s wagon in their haste down the road.

“We will get there before nightfall, won’t we?” Sypha asked. She twisted and wrung her hands together, as she had taken to for the majority of their journey since the rumours had reached their ears of the old Belmont estate, and what stood at the entrance steps of Dracula’s castle. She had initially denied them, almost vehemently. Alucard had fought so hard against his father, to stop his genocide: how dare they speak so disrespectfully of the sacrifices he had made for the same people who were saying such vile things about him. 

But the rumours persisted, from town to town as they travelled back; of bloodied bodies impaled outside the castle steps, of pained screams echoing from the belly of the castle, more and more vivid accounts of the horror that hung over the castle, closer and closer to their destination. What was truth and what was panicked villagers fearful ramblings couldn't be unravelled from each other until they reached the castle, and her resolve had begun to waver.

Trevor grunted in reply, his gaze fixated on the castle, his brows drawn in a sharp arrowhead V above his dark, sleep bruised eyes. His knuckles were white around the reins, gripping them to stop himself from punching something as he kept the horses at a brisk trot over the litter of pine cones and fallen leaves lying thick over the road to hurry their journey without wearing them to exhaustion. He could feel Sypha’s gaze on him, her worry palpable; she could probably feel his anger in return, he had run hot with it every waking moment for the last month of long, hard travel on the road by daylight and what short burst of sleep he could get at night.

“Someone could’ve attacked him while we were away,” Sypha reasoned, looking down at her hands. She picked at the skin around one of her nails. “Another vampire; someone from Dracula’s old Court, or someone looking for a fight. What if they overpowered him and took the castle? What if they are the ones staking bodies outside? Alucard might be trapped in the dungeons, or being tortured, or —”

“Sypha.”

Sypha stopped, turning to face Trevor. He kept his eyes resolutely ahead, the muscle in his jaw jumping under the strain of his gritted teeth.

"Another vampire wouldn't use Dracula's calling card; they'd want everyone to know exactly who stole control of his castle and all the knowledge he kept inside it. They wouldn't want anyone to mistake them for Dracula's bloodline."

Sypha was silent for a moment, and then: "What if he's the one on the castle steps?"

Trevor inhaled deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring as his hands tightened around the reins. It was hard to swallow, the idea that someone short of Dracula at full strength could beat Alucard absolutely in a fight, but Trevor had been taught by a long line of hunters never to believe that anyone - man or monster or otherwise - was unbeatable. There was always a weakness to exploit, something or someone out in the world that was just plain stronger, and he should never put unwavering faith that he or his allies were always going to be that someone stronger when up against the beasts and bastards of the world.

"If someone has him staked on the steps of his own father's castle, we turn every inch of that place upside down until we find them, and kill them. Then we burn the whole fucking thing to the ground."

“But Sypha,” he continued, finally casting his eyes on her. "If it's him; if he's gone mad like his father, do you have my back? Will you help me put an end to Dracula's madness once and for all?"

“Always, Trevor,” she swore, reaching out and placing a hand on his arm. “It won’t come to that, though. He is our friend; we will find out the truth from him.”

“I don’t have your surety.”

“No, but you have me,” she said, linking her arms around his elbow and sliding closer to him, laying her head comfortingly on his shoulder and in turn pulling some little comfort from him. “So, together, we will be able to face anything.”

Trevor snapped the reins, pushing the horses faster.

* * *

The sunset spilled red across the sky, the castle's towering heights and surrounding woods unkempt trees engulfing the estate in wine-purple shadows, the last of the light catching the sharp angles of the walls like the glint off a knife edge. The horses snorted for breath as Trevor drew them to a halt, their coats sleek with the dark glean of sweat, stomping at the soft dirt and grass underfoot, skittery with the putrid smell that carried when the wind changed in their direction.

Trevor and Sypha sat motionless on the wagon seat, staring over the horses’ heads at the entrance to Dracula’s castle, and the two decaying corpses that guarded its front steps.

A month exposed to the elements and the beasts of the surrounding woods had stripped away most of the flesh from their bodies; ragged white linen hung from their frames by fraying threads, the hems fluttering limply in the cold breeze over stumps of ripped off limbs. The ground beneath the pikes they hung from was dark with old, dried blood, scattered with fragments of bone that hadn’t been carried away by beast or bird, or that of smaller animals that had tried to fight for a share of the meal and lost to something bigger. A couple of crows perched on the shoulder of one of the corpses; one turned to study them with a coal black eye, while its companion pecked the hollow of the corpse’s cheek sloughing off from the exposed skull. The eyes had been taken long ago; the freshest, easiest pickings for moisture.

Sypha pressed her fist against her lips, unable to tear her eyes away from the sight before them.

“Fuck.” Despite his rage, a quiet voice of disbelief and denial had whispered resiliently at the back of his mind throughout their journey; the rumours were just fear-mongers spreading lies, superstitious idiots who still jumped at the tap of branches on their windows at night, who wouldn’t let Dracula’s legend die with him. He had quietly leaned on Sypha’s enduring faith in Alucard and his determination to save humanity from his father to the point where he would kill him, that it hadn’t been misplaced and they would come back to have their fears assuaged. He had forgotten that that was not the way his life worked.

“I’m going to kill him.” He threw down the reins, his lip curling in disgust, and jumped from the wagon, his hand finding the Morning Star at his waist as he strode towards the castle.

Sypha wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and scrambled after him, catching up just as they came level with the bodies. She couldn’t help but glance at the one closest to her as she passed it, suppressing the urge to shudder and turned away, focusing on the task ahead and readying for a fight if it came to it.

Neither spoke as they ascended the stairs, the scuff of their shoes against the stone audible in the silence that had fallen over the grounds. Trevor took the lead with long, determined strides, not bothering to hide his approach: Alucard would likely already know they were there. He looked to Sypha over his shoulder, meeting her eyes; a silent conversation passed between them within the span of the few seconds it took to reach the door, and when Sypha nodded in affirmation, he pressed his hand against the solid, heavy wood and pushed it open.

It yielded without resistance, swinging wide and spilling the last of the sunlight across the floor in a long rectangle, their shadows stretching out before them.

Staring into the empty entrance hall, it was if they had stepped back in time for all it looked the same from when they last saw it: debris still lay scattered from their fight with Dracula’s Court, scorch marks and dents marring the walls and floor from Sypha’s magic and the Morning Star, tears in the carpet and banner hangings from knives and swords. Balustrades and pillars pock marked with deep crevices still crumbled dust onto the floor at their base in a state in neglectful disrepair. No light could reach the deep corners at the furthest sides of the hall, the lanterns all cold and dark, hanging with cobwebs.

Their footsteps echoed across the floor, their eyes searching for movement behind the pillars or on the higher levels. It came from the landing of the imperial staircase; a subtle shift in the air, a flicker in the corner of the eye.

“Trevor!” Sypha exclaimed, grabbing his arm and sliding into a defensive stance.

Trevor followed her gaze, his hand reaching for Morning Star and pulling it free from its loops as his eyes fell on the ghostly pale figure of Alucard standing at the top of the stairs, freely roaming around the castle: not trapped in the dungeons, tortured or impaled in some crude fashion after his father; the final proof of who was responsible for the scene outside. Trevor's blood boiled under his skin, studying Alucard through a red haze: he held no weapon that Trevor could see, his casual dress of a loose white linen shirt and dark pants unlikely to conceal them, but that meant nothing. His posture remained lax, one hand resting on the banister rail, the other curled loosely at his side, uncaring that they stood in his entryway with weapons readied; he merely watched them with a cold, hard stare, his face a rigid mask of indifference.

“Trevor Belmont,” he acknowledged, his flinty, cold gaze shifting between them. “Sypha Belnades. The Hunter and the Speaker. Have you come to kill the monster?”

“Have we, Alucard?” Trevor demanded, voice cracking with anger, his eyes tracking Alucard as he slowly descended the stairs to their level. “Is there a monster here to kill?”

Alucard halted halfway down, cocking his head to the side. “You have eyes, do you not? Surely you haven’t drank yourself into blindness that you can’t see for yourself what stands in front of you.”

“I see the bodies of two humans piked on the grounds of my own fucking family’s estate. I see my home desecrated! By your hand! That’s what I see! Am I wrong, Alucard?”

Alucard stared at him, his face unreadable.

“Alucard, please,” Sypha said gently, holding her hands up in front of her, easily changeable from a sign of peace to a summoning gesture. “We are your friends; we just want to know what is going on. Why are two bodies staked outside? What is the meaning of all this?”

“It means they trespassed where they should not have!” Alucard said, a snarl curling at his lip, his brow dipping over his flinty gold eyes in a sharp glare. “It means they crossed me and they paid for it. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Good enough for me,” Trevor said, and let Morning Star fly.

“Trevor, wait!”

Alucard cut through the air in a flickering blur, reappearing in front of Trevor. Throwing his arm back, he cracked his fist against his jaw and sent him flying back across the hall in a heap.

“Trevor!” Sypha’s eyes shot between Trevor and Alucard, running to block Alucard from advancing, flicking her fingers in a series of gestures to summon fire in the cups of her palms, casting hot orange light across her set jaw and unyielding stare.

“Don’t do this, Alucard,” she warned.

Alucard bared his teeth with a hiss, rolling his shoulders ready to strike. Sypha stood firm, holding his gaze challengingly. Eyeing the layout of the hall, he shifted; leaping into the air, reaching inhuman heights, he dropped down with a force that cracked the floor where Sypha had stood a breath before, darting out of the way and circling him. He followed her, his fingers curled into claws that reached for her throat.

Loops of metal chain caught his arm in mid swing, snapping taut and yanking him off balance. He stumbled back, spinning to face Trevor with an inhuman shriek, his face contorting into animalistic fury.

Trevor snarled back with his teeth bared, digging his heels in and holding fast on Morning Star’s grip.

Alucard yanked, outmatching Trevor in strength, and pulled him off his feet, throwing him in a wide arc through the air. The chain links rattled, screaming in their curving flight through the air; the balustrade of the imperial landing rushed at Trevor, the solid block of carved marble threatening to stop him face first against its rippled stone.

His second whip unfurled in his free hand, and he shot it towards one of the ceiling beams, the leather wrapping tight around the stone and jerking him into a different trajectory up into a swing. Morning Star still gripped in his fist, he threw his arm up at the zenith of his swing, and dragged Alucard after him with an indignant, surprised yelp from Alucard.

Landing lightly on the balustrade, he flicked his wrists, slipping both whips off their attached appendages of dhampir and castle and looping them effortlessly over his arms. He shifted, light-footed into stance as Alucard pushed himself up from where he’d fallen on the stairs, and leapt up them in long, loping strides towards Trevor.

“Come on, then,” Trevor goaded viciously, raising both arms and let the whips fly.

They danced around each other; Alucard serpentine and sinewy in his movements around the solid, uncompromising statue Trevor made, refusing to be moved by his supernatural speed as he ducked and wove around the cuts of the leather whip and the bludgeoning strikes of the Morning Star. The slashing lines of the metal and leather blurred into wild orbits around Trevor, like the rings around a planet, screaming through the air in a death ballad; Alucard sped around their arcing slices, twisting and leaping around Trevor stood rooted in place, blocking and batting away hits from each side, unable to get any closer to him.

Sypha watched them clash from the bottom of the stairs, her eyes trailing over each of them in every move they made; she saw the sheen of sweat growing on Trevor’s brow, the heave of his chest for breath in his lungs as he slowly grew tired from the fight, the strength behind the swing of his arms weakening. Alucard didn’t get tired the way they did, but he was not the poised, elegant fighter they had first met and travelled with; his lunges were wild and vicious instead of coordinated and planned, caught by one of the whips before he could effectively stop them. He raised his arm to block the Morning Star, his shirt sleeve sliding down to his elbow; Sypha narrowed her eyes, a confused frown pulling at her lips. She clenched her teeth, running up the stairs, her hands drawing sigils in the air in front of her as she gathered power between her palms.

Trevor and Alucard separated, standing on opposite sides of the landing, regrouping themselves: Trevor threw the whips behind him, rolling his shoulders and flicking them against the ground, ready to attack again. Alucard hissed through his teeth, crouching low to the floor on all fours, broadcasting exactly what his next move was; Trevor countered his stance, ready, and Alucard leapt high into the air.

Trevor followed his trajectory, tensing his shoulders and swinging his arms up, throwing the long lengths of his weapons in a sharp arc, Morning Star alighting in a bright ball of white-blue fire. They curved into Alucard’s path, ready to meet him halfway down his drop onto Trevor. Alucard didn’t try to avoid them, his eyes blazing in the fire, holding Trevor’s hard glare even at their distance.

Then there was ice; thick and white and stretching from floor to ceiling in a cracking flash. He landed against the solid wall of it, pushing himself off of it and landing in a deep crouch at the far side of the landing. He saw Trevor on the other side of it, blocked from each other, and in unison they both turned to stare at Sypha standing at the top step, her hands held up on either side of her face in completion of her spell.

Opening her eyes, she dropped her arms, spreading her hands wide, and blew out a breath that ruffled her bangs. “Please, both of you; stop this now. We travelled and we fought together, we had each other’s backs when we needed each other: why can you not just talk to us and explain what happened here?”

She turned the question to Alucard, who rose to his full height, his posture tense and guarded, his lips drawn into a thin line of annoyance usually reserved for Trevor. His eyes flickered from Sypha to Trevor and back again, infuriatingly unreadable even as something wavered behind them that she couldn’t quite catch.

On the other side of the ice, Trevor waited vigilantly, shifting his grip on his whips, watching Alucard for any threat against Sypha, now that his attention was focused on her.

“Alucard,” she said gently. “Talk to us; I am a Speaker, as you said. I gather stories; let us just sit down and you can tell me yours, what has become of you since we last saw each other.”

His throat jumped as he swallowed, his fingers twitching at his sides, restless.

“Alucard,” she repeated, soft and coaxing. “What happened to your wrists?”

His hands curled into fists, his face darkened, shuttering like the slamming of door and she belatedly realised what his eyes had tried to hide from her as the tension in his shoulders turned from defensive to aggressive, his lips curling back in a snarl.

“Get. _Out_!” he bellowed, and threw out his hands in front of him.

Sypha’s breath escaped her in a pained rush, the invisible blow to her chest like a giant’s hammer that took her off her feet and down the stairs in a tumble. Her hair whipped around her face as something of a whirlwind swept through the hall, bats spilling into the air from hidden crevices in the walls and blinding her with their dark bodies spiralling tightly around her, their squeaking and chittering deafening her. Her feet slipped against the carpet, catching out from under her as she and Trevor were dragged across the hall and thrown out onto the steps, crashing at the bottom in a heap between the two corpse sentries. The bats swarmed into the air and disappeared back into the castle as the doors slammed shut with a crack that echoed across the grounds, sending the horses into panicked whinnying, jostling each other where they still stood.

Silence descended over the grounds, and Sypha pushed herself up from the dirt, rolling over to sit with her knees drawn to her chest. She rubbed her head as she looked up at the towering spires of the castle, the dark, empty windows like a hundred watchful eyes judging her. Beside her, Trevor gathered himself onto his knees and straightened, following her gaze up the walls of the castle searchingly; what he sought, she wasn’t sure, but she suddenly felt the last month’s exhaustion wash over her like a wave, wearing away the last of her strength. Trevor seemed to suffer the same, falling down on his backside, keeping himself propped up by his locked arms behind him.

“Fuck,” he cursed, finally giving into the desire to punch something, and struck his fist against the ground.


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor and Sypha do some investigating

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow wow wow, the response to this has been bonkers. Thank you for your interest in my fic, I'm glad you are all enjoying reading it so far.
> 
> I won't be able to update every few days consistently, I'll try to set it up as a weekly update, but I am moving at the end of the month so we'll see how fast I can get back online when I have to mildly reshuffle my life at that point.
> 
> Again, thanks again readers x

Trevor shoved himself up off the ground, brushing the dirt and dust from his tunic with a curse. “Well, that couldn’t have gone any better if we tried.”

Sypha sighed, pushing herself up onto her feet and righting her clothes. Her ears still rang from the bats’ shrieking, and her sternum felt bruised from the invisible force that had knocked her off her feet in the castle. She rubbed her knuckles over her breastbone, her thoughts still inside with Alucard and what she had seen in the brief glimpse of his wrist, and what it meant.

"We have to try to get back inside," Sypha decided, looking up at the door. "Something is terribly wrong: we cannot leave him in there like this."

"We already knew that, and we wouldn’t be out here worrying about it if you had kept your word," Trevor snapped, wrapping his leather whip around his arm in long loops.

"Kept my-- _excuse me_?" Sypha demanded, her curls bouncing around her face, sparks of lightning crackled through them, as she spun and glared at Trevor, her hands on her hips. "I have never broken my promises to you, Trevor Belmont! I have always watched out for you when you needed me!"

"Well, I needed you in there, and you weren't on my side there."

Sypha folded her arms across her chest, her scowl turning cold and stony.

"I don't take sides between my friends," she said, in a way that left no room for argument. "And I won't blindly follow you if you are wrong."

"What is right about this, Sypha?" He demanded. His voice cut through the air like the whip at his side, spooking the dining crows into a flapping of wings and agitated caws. He swept his arm out in a wide arc to encompass the half-picked corpses and the darkened doorway of Dracula's castle in the last of the diminishing light, twilight blanketing the world in the violet purples and blues of a bruise. "What is right about any of this? Are there not enough bodies in the ground here already? Is it not enough that my whole bloodline has soaked the earth? That their ashes are among the dirt and worms? And he chooses to add _more_? Spike them up on poles by his front door and let the crows feed on them? Watch as they decay day in day out? And for what? For his own sadistic pleasure? For his father’s pride? What is right about that?"

He stomped away from her for several paces before coming to a halt, shaking with anger and the adrenaline of a fight cut short. He clenched and unclenched his fists, gritting his teeth to stop the words spilling out like a flood he wouldn't be able to stop if he started speaking them; too much hurt and anger festered in an old, unhealed wound that the world wouldn't let mend, all the bastards and beasts of mankind finding him and kicking him again and again when he was down, like a dog. Who cussed him out as a devil-worshipper and black sorcerer when the dog they kept kicking decided to bite. He—stupidly, so _stupidly_ —hadn't expected Alucard to infect the wound, too.

A light touch, gentle and without demand, lay on his arm.

He huffed, his eyes squeezed shut, and brought one closed fist to his forehead. He felt the pounding through his skull, the steady thump of his heartbeat. Taking a steadying breath, he dropped his arm to his side, and looked over his shoulder at Sypha with tired, contrite eyes as she stepped in close to him. Her small, slim fingers found his fist and encouraged his hand to open to her. He let himself be taken in her grip, squeezing his hand comfortingly as she snuck under his arm, pressing against his side as a warm pillar of support.

“I’m sorry, Trevor,” she said, her expression soft and understanding. “I never truly considered how deeply this would affect you; this was your family home, you shouldn’t have to see this after everything that happened here.”

“It’s alright,” Trevor replied quietly, drawing her closer and pressing his lips against the crown of her head, his eyes slipping closed as his anger eased. “It’s not your fault; I’m not truly angry at you.”

Sypha reached up with her free hand and rested it against his chest, rubbing it in small, soothing circles. She turned her face into the thick fur of his cloak, burying herself in its warmth and familiar smell. “Do you really think he’s doing this because he… likes it?”

Trevor inhaled deeply, his breath catching a handful of strawberry blonde fly-away hairs and making them bounce and shiver. He considered her question, thinking it over before he chose his next words with conviction.

“No,” he replied, and felt Sypha sag with relief in his embrace. “No, you were right: something is wrong with him. He didn’t use his sword to fight me, just his fists: the only time I saw him do that was against his father, and only when he got desperate towards the end. There was no calculation behind his movements, he didn’t seem to have a plan or any control; he should’ve been able to get through my whips, even with two of them. He was sloppy and careless; which means he was desperate. So, we need to know why he was desperate.”

Sypha leaned back, blinking up at Trevor with big, rounded eyes.

“You know, Trevor, sometimes I forget you aren’t just a drunkard with a big whip.”

Trevor’s mouth cocked up at one side in half smile, and he shrugged good naturedly. “I do have my moments, rare that they might be.”

Sypha chuckled along with him, before they both sobered, easing out of each other’s space as their focus returned to the problem they had to deal with Alucard. Trevor stared up at the dark walls of the castle, scratching the back of his neck in thought.

“What was on his wrists?” he asked, surprising Sypha.

“Wha—oh! It looked like he had burn marks, or scars on them.”

“What did they look like?”

“Like… burn marks? Or scars?”

Trevor sighed patiently, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I mean; were they thick? Were they thin? Were they solid, broken, scattered?”

“Oh! They… They weren’t thick, but it looked like they wrapped around his whole wrist,” she described, circling her wrist with her thumb and two middle fingers and rubbing them back and forth, indicating the rough size and position of the scars. “They looked very red; not new, but not healing right.”

“Why?” she asked, at the sight of Trevor’s frown. “Do you know what they are?”

Trevor shook his head, rubbing his chin in thought. “No, but I intend to get some answers.”

His attention turned to the corpses on the poles. “And they aren’t staying there any longer.”

“Should we bury them?” Sypha suggested, rubbing her arms as Trevor walked over to the closest one and examined the pike. “Or… burn them? Do you think maybe… maybe they attacked him, and he was just defending himself? Maybe that is why he put them out here like that?”

“I don’t know,” he answered truthfully. “I want to say yes; but if he was attacked, why didn’t he just say so? Why make himself seem like the villain, like his father? If he was attacked, why didn’t he burn or bury them when he defeated them?”

Sypha hummed in agreement, no answers for Alucard’s actions as Trevor grabbed the base of the pike and shimmied it out of the ground. The bones rattled together, as if irritated by his manhandling, and vomited rotten, maggot-ridden viscera from the gaping hole in its abdomen onto his boots.

“Oh, fuck you, too,” Trevor grunted, and Sypha pulled a face, covering her mouth and nose with one hand.

“So, what are you going to do with them?”

“Well, Sypha,” Trevor replied, propping the pike upright and clapping his hand on the corpse’s shoulder. “Sometimes, the dead have more to say than the living. You just have to know how to ask.”

He turned to the body with a confident smile, and its jaw bone dropped loose from the skull and bounced across the grass.

Sypha watched it tumble to a stop, unimpressed, before she looked at Trevor and the corpse, jabbing her finger. “You are not putting them anywhere near where we are sleeping tonight.”

*

They agreed that the easiest place to make camp was inside the ruins of the Belmont estate: there were enough walls left standing that would buffer the wind and provide them with an element of cover from any roaming animals. Sypha found a safe corner to unbridle the horses and brush them down for the night, letting them munch on the grass nearby and retire to their straw when they were ready, while she unpacked the wagon and set up camp in a clearing among the rubble.

What would have been two rooms over, Trevor had found two flat slabs of stone large enough to accommodate the remains and had lain them flat on each one. She hadn’t approached them since he had removed them from their stakes, keeping her distance even when he asked her to keep watch as he went down into the hold for the books and the tools he needed to perform the autopsy on them. An array of lanterns was set up, circling them to give him enough light to work by during the night; when she eventually wandered over to his new work station, she found him there lighting the last of them. Hovering by the crumbling doorway, he noticed her presence without having to speak a word, wiping his hands on some scrap cloth as he approached her. She pretended not to notice that it was the same fabric as the rags that had dressed the bodies.

“Do you think you’ll find any answers from them?” she asked.

“Well, they’re already pretty decayed; and I’m no expert. My mother, on the other hand,” he chuckled, “my uncle Rion used to joke that no one ever knew for sure whether my father married my mother for how fast she could butcher a hog to roast, or how fast she could dissect a full-grown man.”

Sypha stared at him, deadpan. “Trevor, that is positively morbid.”

“Yeah.” He hummed under his breath, a sad, nostalgic half-smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as the ghosts pulled him into the past long gone.

Sypha watched him get drawn away from her in silence, waiting for the moment when he realised what he was doing and he would push them back into the dark corners of his mind, only to return when drink tore down his walls again and let them invade his thoughts like a vengeful army. It came in way of a cloud over his eyes, sharpening them into flints of ice, his smile falling into a hard, grim line, and he shook the memories free, returning to his fortress. She thinned her lips in a grimace, throwing her gaze elsewhere so he didn’t catch her staring at him in a moment of vulnerability.

He misjudged her expression, throwing her a teasing smile. “Surely your Speaker learnings have brought you across this sort of thing before? Doesn’t your people have extensive knowledge of healing all sorts of terrible ails in grim and grisly ways?”

“Yes, of course,” she said defensively, folding her arms and pouting. “But that’s for healing—preserving life. This is… this just seems very ghoulish.”

“But necessary,” Trevor added, sobering. “Which leads me to ask if you would do something also necessary.”

“What is it?”

“There is a spell book in the hold, with instructions of performing a seeking spell,” he explained. “It will allow the caster to find out if anything has been taken from the hold by someone other than a Belmont.”

Sypha nodded in understanding. “I will do it.”

“It might take you a while; the hold is big,” Trevor warned.

Sypha cast one last glance at the bodies laid out on the cold hard slab of stone. “I don’t think either of us will be getting much sleep tonight. I will tell you what I find; tell me what you find, as well.”

* * *

They both worked well into the night, slow and methodical in each of their tasks, until night gave way to morning again, and the sky was painted in warm golden orange hues. Sypha stepped out into the bright sunlight pouring through the trees, shielding her tired eyes with one hand and stifling a yawn as she trod back to the autopsy clearing with the findings from the night-long search. She found Trevor standing with his back to her between the two makeshift workbenches, braced on the edge of the stone slab and staring down at what remained from his investigation, his thoughts far away as his fingers tapped against the stone in idle thought. Multiple books lay spread open on what was left of the clean surfaces, propped up against each other with heavily dog-eared pages. Scalpels and tweezers and pins soaked in a bowl of water turned dull, dirty brown by blood and dirt; bones and organs lay lined up alongside the body they had been taken from, cut open or sectioned to expose their deeper insides.

He noticed her standing there again before she could clear her throat and alert him to her presence, and he straightened, beckoning her over. His expression was worn and irritable, black circles weighing down his eyes, deep lines pinching the corners of his mouth with a frown.

“Good morning,” she said around a half-yawn. She glanced briefly at the bodies before she focused back on Trevor, narrowing her eyes at the expression on his face. “What? What’s wrong?”

Trevor shook his head, scratching the back of his neck with a grumbling sigh. “I wouldn’t say something is wrong — other than what we already know is wrong — but I am aware my knowledge is limited with this sort of thing, and the books only help so far. I can only make guesses from what I’ve found.”

Sypha nodded, understanding his frustration: Trevor was a contrary creature that was both entirely apathetic to the world and everything in it, including himself, and still held higher expectations of himself and his abilities than everyone else around him.

“Well, how about I tell you what I definitely know,” she suggested, “and then you tell me what you think you know.”

“What did you find out?” Trevor asked, whipping around with interest, his gaze falling on the book she carried with her as she pulled it out from under her arm and flicked through it rapidly to find the page she sought.

She spread the book flat when she found it, flipping it round and holding it open at the page she needed. “These things.”

She tapped the left-handed page, and Trevor leaned in, studying it, his brow furrowing as his frown deepened. “Binding Rings. The book doesn’t have much information on them, other than they are special made with magical properties and can be used on different night creatures. Those are the only thing that is missing from the hold; at least, if I performed the spell correctly, they should be the only thing missing.”

Sypha poked her nose over the top of book, looking between the illustration depicted on the page and Trevor’s face. “Would these cause marks like the ones on Alucard’s wrists?”

“Yeah,” Trevor said slowly, straightening up and leaning back against the stone slab behind him, tapping his fingers against the rough edge, the gears in his head turning behind his pale eyes. Sypha closed the book and settled in the spot next to him, glancing behind her to ensure she wasn’t leaning into any bodily remains occupying the majority of the stone surface.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m no closer to an answer than I was at the start of this undertaking.”

“What did you find from our friends here?” Sypha nodded over her shoulder, pulling a face at the array spread out behind them.

Trevor hummed under his breath, folding his arms across his chest and pointing to the one laying on the slab in front of them. “I’m inexperienced, as I said, and the bodies weren’t in best condition to begin with: what I can tell you, is how they died.”

Sypha cocked her head, raising an eyebrow in question. She tracked his movement to the body behind him, twisting around as he pointed to their throat, the remaining flaps of skin pulled apart and back to reveal the trachea, oesophagus, blood vessels, and at the very back, the wetly glistening white of the bones in the neck.

“Both have the exact same cuts across their jugular; they were standing side by side when they were killed, and the cut is so deep it scored the bone all the way at the back of their neck.”

They both leaned over as he said it, looking past the bloody pulp that was left to the hardier bone; in the growing morning light, a single, faint line scored the surface.

“So, what does that mean?” Sypha asked, withdrawing primly from close proximity to the cadaver. “He must have used his sword; that’s the only thing that could have made those marks.”

Trevor nodded in agreement. “Yeah; but it also indicates how he used it. He used so much force he didn’t _just_ slice their throats, he nearly decapitated them. These guys are ordinary humans, he wouldn’t need to use more than a flick of his wrist to send these two to meet whatever God they might believe in, but he did.”

They looked at each, silently sharing their thoughts.

“Desperation,” Sypha stated, echoing Trevor’s words from the night before.

Trevor nodded again, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighed. “After that, things get muddier: their blood has been drained from them, but I can’t tell if he drank it, or it soaked into the ground over the last month, or…”

He trailed off, throwing his hands up in a shrug.

“The remainder of their organs don’t show much damage that I can distinguish from ordinary animals chewing on them,” he continued. “And I can’t tell much about their origins from their clothes: they just have these rags, which I assume to be nightclothes. That’s the closest thing they resemble, so…”

“So, we have two humans,” Sypha completed. “Who were nearly decapitated while they were in their nightshirts.”

They shared a grim look between them.

“I will admit it does not paint Alucard in a good light,” Sypha conceded. “But, I still… I still think we should hear his side of things. There _must_ be an explanation for all this.”

“I want to hear it just as much as you do,” Trevor admitted, nodding to her book. “Considering when you add those Binding Rings into the equation.”

“How so?”

“The Belmont clan used them for interrogations,” he explained. “They could hold any number of night creatures—vampires especially—in a weakened state without killing them for as long as we needed them. It wasn’t painless either.”

“The thing is,” he continued over her look of horror, “is that they were so rarely used, because the magic imbued in them was flawed: they could only be attached when the vampire—or whatever you were needing to interrogate at the time—was vulnerable. You can imagine how often we got anything in such a vulnerable state that we could attach these things and haul back to interrogate without it dying half way along the road.”

He shook his head, pinching his nose again as if to stave off a growing headache.

“Okay,” Sypha said slowly, absorbing this new measure of information into her knowledge base. “Okay, so… so maybe… maybe they are assassins, who trick Alucard to let them stay for the night under the guise of travellers or something and… and when he falls asleep, they sneak in and try to trap him. He wakes up, realises what they doing, and kills them in self-defence.”

“Possible, but leaving a number of questions to be answered. How did they get into the hold to steal these in the first place, and how did they manage to sneak up on Alucard when, if you remember, he never sleeps? He was in that regeneration chamber for over a year, he never slept once when he was with us since he woke from it.”

“Not to mention,” he added. “He would have to be absolutely defenceless; these things do not take hold unless he was so vulnerable he would not, or could not, be able to see them coming—these two humans—from a mile off, when he was able to fight me two minutes out of the coffin. Does that sound like the dour bastard to you?”

Sypha pursed her lips, and slowly shook her head. Suddenly, she threw her head back and yelled wordlessly at the sky, startling Trevor.

“Adrian Tepes, why can’t you just _talk_ to us?” she shouted at the clouds drifting overhead. Dropping her head back down, she thumped the book in her hands against her forehead to Trevor’s growing confusion.

“Why can’t men ever just talk about what is going on in their thick, bullish heads?” She punctuated every other word with a thump of the book.

“Hey!” Trevor argued, recoiling when Sypha round on him, jabbing her finger at his chest.

“Don’t you “hey” me, Trevor Belmont, you are one of the worst when speaking of your feelings,” she chided.

“I… talk about my feelings,” he said sheepishly, leaning away from her poking. “When I feel hungry… when I feel tired… when I feel too sober…”

“Aauurggh!” she shouted exasperatedly, swinging the book up above her head to smack him with it. He raised his hands in peace quickly, subduing her frustration.

“Alright, alright,” he relented, relaxing when the book was safely tucked back in her lap. He spread his hands, conceding to her. “Something happened here, and we need to find out what, and… and make sure Alucard is alright.”

“And the only one who can tell us that is Alucard,” Sypha completed.

Trevor blew out a heavy breath, nodding. “Yeah, cause why would this be bloody easy?”

Sypha cocked an eyebrow, glancing over her shoulder at the dissected pieces before side eyeing Trevor.

“That was easy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of dark humour in this chapter, a little bit of close-but-no-cigar when it comes to our heroes figuring stuff out, a little bit of more angst on Trevor's side of things. I know nothing from the game series, and it's never detailed in the series as of yet, so I made up Trevor's family. They will pop up every so often in future chapters as honourable mentions.
> 
> That's all for now x


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More investigating. Getting closer, heroes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I wanted to put this as a weekly update, and I wanted to get this up last Saturday/Sunday but I had to take on extra shifts at work because of everything that is going on in the world right now, so I didn't have the time to get this finished when I wanted.
> 
> I still intend to keep writing during this crazy time; it might be slower than the week-to-week update schedule I initially hoped for, but I enjoy writing this, and you guys seem to enjoy reading this, and with more and more people being in isolation, it's important that people can connect to as many things they enjoy as they can, so, I'll update as soon as I can around work. Everyone look after yourselves and each other, and enjoy this chapter xx

They agreed — after Sypha had decided and had allowed no argument from Trevor — that Trevor would stay behind to bury the bodies while Sypha went ahead into the castle to look for Alucard, since she would be far less likely to end up fighting him rather than talking with him. Trevor had grumbled and griped about splitting up and the danger Sypha might be in: she politely reminded him she was a trained Speaker magician and could look after herself, and that Alucard might feel less antagonised being approached by her than Trevor at the moment. Trevor didn’t have a reply to that; with the matter settled on that, Sypha kissed him on the cheek and had told him to catch up once he’d cleared away the bodies, and jogged off to the castle.

Her plan quickly went awry when she approached the front door and could not get it open.

She stared up at it with a frown, her brows meeting each other in a shallow V, tapping her foot on the stone as she considered her options. She began by knocking on the door and awaiting an answer, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet patiently.

When no answer came, she resorted to banging on it: nothing.

She banged more forcefully on it for good measure; it was a big castle, he might not have heard her first attempt at knocking, being so dainty.

Several minutes passed, and she grumbled under her breath, rolling up her sleeves and bracing her shoulder against the door. Digging her foot into the stone beneath her, she threw herself against it and tried to shove it open.

She tried twice before she gave up, rubbing her throbbing shoulder with a huff.

Heaving a sigh that ruffled her bangs, she stepped back to the edge of the stairs and stared up at the hundreds of dark windows speckled up the walls, silently judging her failed attempts to breach the castle.

“Don’t look at me like that.” She pouted, folding her arms across her chest and turning her nose up with a flick of her head. “I pulled you across half of Wallachia and rooted you here all by myself; if anyone can get in to you, it’s me.”

Cracking one eye open, she glanced back at the castle in case the reminder of her power against it had cowed it into submission and opened its doors to her.

It had not.

She sighed, sagging where she stood, and rubbed her forehead with her thumb and forefinger. “Listen to me, speaking to a castle; I sound out of my mind.”

Rubbing the back of her neck in thought, she scanned the walls along the ground; she couldn’t see any windows or extra doors, but there were three more sides to the castle, and she did not give up so easily. Jogging down the stairs, she took a left turn along the wall and headed around the corner, searching for another way into the castle. She found one half way along the length of the wall, low to the ground, and narrower than she would have liked, but she couldn't be choosy.

Crouching down on her haunches, she cupped her hands over her eyes and pressed against the glass, studying the room inside: it looked like a domestic kitchen, small and intimate, meant for family meals rather than great gatherings hosting hundreds of people. It looked clean, but used; dishes sat drying by the sink, herbs and vegetables hung from racks above the table, fresh fruit sat in a bowl by the side. She withdrew to inspect the window between her and her desired destination; a latch kept it shut from the inside, but a quick ice spell froze it to the point that a sharp hit to the edge of the frame shattered it.

“Yay!” she cheered quietly, clapping her hands in self-congratulatory applause, and swung the window open to its widest point. It would still be a squeeze, but Sypha was nothing if not determined. She’d faced a stone-eyed cyclops to find her legendary sleeping soldier under Gresit (and turned to stone by said cyclops, but never mind) she wouldn’t let a little window stop her, no matter how undignified she looked wriggling feet-first through the gap and clamouring off the counter in a tangle of clothes.

She righted herself when her feet were firmly on the floor, dusting off her clothes as she reorganised them, and took another look at the kitchen.

It was even more welcoming standing in the middle of it; the stones were warm under the soles of her shoes from the sunlight streaming in, glinting off the copper pots and pans stacked up on top of each other, the fresh fragrances of the herbs and vegetables permeating the air, enticing to be used. The counters were clean and dust free, clear of mess with space for preparing meals easily, the wood of the cupboards smooth and polished.

She ran her hand over the back of the chair sitting at the head of the dining table, folding her arms over the back of it and looking down the length of the empty table: long enough to sit two on each side, and one at either end. Only the one she leaned on seemed to be regularly used, and she despaired at the idea of eating every meal alone: growing up in a Speaker caravan, she’d never sat down for a plate of food without someone on either side of her around the fire, sharing bread and drinks and stories with each other, sometimes with a heavy solemnness during the rough times, but more times with laughter and chatter and easy company during the peaceful times. Then, with Trevor, even when they shared meals in silence, there was still a sense of comfortable companionship that kept her content.

She rubbed her arms, pulling them close to hug herself. There had been no comfortable companionship here over the last few months; one didn’t need to plant corpses on the front lawn to show that.

Turning her gaze away and stepping back from the long, lonely table, a blur of orange sweeping across her line of sight drew her attention to the shelves on the other side of the kitchen, and she quickly scanned them to find what had caught her eye.

She discovered it was a doll.

Two dolls actually; scraps of material sewn together and propped up with kitchen utensils, in obvious depictions of herself and Trevor.

Eyebrows raised in surprise, her feet carried her across the kitchen to the shelves, and she reached out her hand to pluck her own little doll from where it sat next to Trevor’s counterpart. The utensil limbs fell away, and she felt it’s weight in her hands, the body and head stuffed with straw or pillow down that shifted and squashed under her turning fingers. Two bright blue buttons stared up at her bleakly in place of eyes under a crown of orange wool, and her heart twisted uneasily in her chest, as if she had stumbled across something private, something she had no right see. She barely registered Trevor calling her name from outside, or the rattle of the window against the frame as he followed her lead and squeezed and wriggled and grunted his way through it into the kitchen. She jumped in surprise when he crashed over the counter and onto the floor with a loud, forceful clamour, whirling around with a start and finding Trevor pushing himself up from the floor, rubbing his head with an obvious wince.

“He’s gone and barred the bloody front door,” he grumbled, righting his clothes with an irritated shake of his shoulders, like a hound. “I—what’s that you’ve got?”

Sypha pulled the doll away from where she clutched it to her chest, running her thumb over its cheek. Trevor stared at it over her shoulder, before he deduced the existence of his own doll and located it without saying a word. She watched him carefully lift it from the shelf, the spoons that had served for arms tapping against the shelf when they fell. He didn’t say anything as he turned it over in his hands, running his fingers over the material, an unreadable expression on his face. His eyes travelled the mop of wool that emulated his shaggy hair, the tuck of fabric under the left eye-button for a scar, the stitched detail on the doll’s face for his scruffy stubble; there was even a loop of string knotted to the doll’s side, like the coils of a whip.

“What are you thinking, Trevor?” Sypha asked quietly.

Trevor exhaled a heavy breath through his nose, and rubbed his fingers over his forehead.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, dropping his arm and the doll to his side. “I don’t know what to make of all this; bodies on the front lawn, puppets of us in the kitchen… what the hell has Alucard been doing?”

“Maybe he missed us,” Sypha suggested softly, looking down at her own doll. “Maybe he got lonely, in this big empty castle, and he wanted some company.”

“So, what? He slit a couple of throats to get our attention and call us back here?” Trevor asked, his mouth tightening at the corners in muted anger.

“You think that’s what happened?” she asked, glancing up at him through her fringe.

“I don’t know. Christ.” He scratched his fingers through his hair until he reached his nape, rubbing the back of his neck as if massaging away an ache.

“I don’t know,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I can’t read his mind, I can’t figure out—”

He cut himself off, shaking his head again. He looked at the doll of himself again with a thoughtful frown, thumbing the loops of hair out of its face, it’s cool blue button-eyes staring back up at him expressionlessly. He set it back on the shelf carefully, propping the two spoons back in place at its side, and turned towards the kitchen door.

“Come on, you wanted to find him; let’s find him,” he said over his shoulder, waving to her to follow him.

“What if he doesn’t want to be found?” she said, unmoving from where she stood. “What if he’s decided that he doesn’t want us here?”

Trevor paused at the door, leaning his hand against it as he turned back to face her with an easy shrug. “If he doesn’t want us here, then he can come and kick us out himself; but if he wants a Belmont off the Belmont Estate, that’s going to cost him. Come on, even if he doesn’t want to give us answers, we can find some on our own.”

He disappeared out the kitchen, and Sypha took a step to follow him, before she paused in thought. Glancing between the two dolls, she reached out and plucked Trevor’s from the shelf, tucking them both into her robe before she jogged out the kitchen after Trevor.

* * *

The hallways and corridors of the castle were dim and bleak, the lanterns cold and dark on the walls. Dust had settled at the edges of the carpet and on the skirting, cobwebs trailing from the ceiling and balconies like silken ropes. Bats and rats squeaked and chirruped from dark corners just out of sight, flitting across the floors and ceilings in the deeper shadows. No warmth could be felt from any of the rooms they passed, each as empty and dark as the next one. They traversed endless winding staircases and long stretches of corridors that all looked the same, and saw no signs of any life having inhabited the castle for the last three months, except the vermin. Even Dracula’s reign of the castle had the lanterns burning and the hearths glowing, his vampire council living in comfort even as he deteriorated in isolation.

Like father, like son.

“This place feels… it’s like…” Sypha struggled to formulate an appropriate description for the dank dreariness that seemed to blanket the halls of the castle; so different from the warmth of the small, secluded kitchen they had snuck through, so different from the innovations made to the Belmont hold for ease of access and protection both.

“Like death,” Trevor supplied through gritted teeth. “Like a mausoleum, a crypt, a bloody grave. I damn well—”

Trevor cut himself off with a noise of frustration, biting his tongue as he glared along the next long, empty corridor that they turned down, with no sign of Alucard or any indication of where he lived in the endless labyrinth of his father’s castle. He stopped short, and Sypha drew up next to him, the flickering light from the fire in her hands illuminating her face in a wash of warm orange and turning her hair a rich gold.

“Trevor?” she queried, cocking her head to the side.

He shook his head. “We’re not getting anywhere like this. We might even be going around in circles for all we know: we followed Alucard’s lead when we last set foot here.”

“What do you suggest we do now? Should we retrace our steps back to the kitchen? We may have missed something there that could give us an idea of where Alucard is.”

“We might not have to go all the way back.” Trevor rubbed his chin, looking back the way they came and then down the long straight of the corridor in front of them. “If we could re-orientate ourselves, maybe we can find his childhood bedroom again.”

“His bedroom?” Sypha repeated, squinting her eyes in confusion. “He killed his father in that room, surely he’d want to avoid it. I certainly would: how awful a memory to have associated with that.”

“That’s exactly why I think he’d go there,” Trevor explained, folding his arms. “Funny thing about bad memories, they just seem to keep pulling you back to the same damn places.”

Sypha snuck one hand through Trevor’s tightly crossed arms, slipping her hand into his larger one, and squeezing it gently. His gaze fell to her standing beside him, and he relaxed his arms to his sides, keeping their hands intertwined.

“Come on,” she said, nodding back the way they came. “I think I can figure out how to find his bedroom again.”

*

It took them some trial and error, until they found the destroyed hallways that Dracula and Alucard had tore through in their final confrontation: Alucard hadn’t touched this corner of the castle either, rubble and debris scattered across the cracked and splintered floor, the walls torn half down in their viciousness. From there, it was a precarious trek across the unstable floor, following the trail of old wreckage that mapped the path back to the caved in door of Alucard’s old childhood bedroom. Sypha peered through the gaping hole in the wall, looking around the room for any sign of inhabitancy.

“It’s untouched,” she said, climbing over the rubble into the room itself, looking around. “Completely.”

Trevor carefully followed her, picking his way over the splintered wood and crumbled stone, taking in the details of the room. His eyes fell on the silver wedding band the same time Sypha saw it; she crouched down at the edge of the singed carpet that ringed it, resting her fingertips on the cold floorboards laid bare under the rug, avoiding touching the ring directly.

“Trevor,” she began, raising her eyes before she did a double take, focusing on something on the other side of the bed out of Trevor’s line of sight, and hurried over to it.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” he asked, taking a step forward as she straightened up on the other side of the small bed, holding a bunched-up ball of material in her hands. She took two corners of it and shook it out to its full size: a bedsheet, dusty with disuse, and streaked black with — taking an educated guess — old, dried blood. “Shit.”

“This isn’t from this room,” Sypha guessed.

“No, it’s not,” Trevor agreed, casting his eyes to the floor again. “There.”

He pointed at a dark smear on the floorboards, hidden in the dim light and missed if he hadn’t been looking it. Several more smear and streaks speckled the floor, dried and cracked into the wood grain and the fibres of the rug. Not enough to account for two bodies worth of blood, but it was there none the less, when it hadn’t been there the last time they had stood in this room.

“He brought it here.”

“Is it his? Or... theirs?”

“One more thing I don’t know,” Trevor admitted. “If we knew where it came from, we’d be closer to our answer.”

“So, where is it from?” Sypha asked, pulling her eyes away from the blood stains and back to the bedsheet in her hands. “It would have to be another bedroom somewhere in the castle, but I didn’t see any at all.”

Trevor nodded, beginning to pace, his mind circling around the bodies, the nightclothes, the binder rings, and now the bedsheet. Something irritated him about the whole thing, and he couldn’t put his finger on it, no matter which way he twisted and turned the evidence in his mind, looking at it each way he could think to look at it. The bodies, the nightclothes, the binders, the bedsheet. The easiest picture to paint was that Alucard had slit the throats of two humans while they slept, but that ignored the presence of the binder rings in the evidence. The alternative was that Alucard had taken them from the hold himself to use against a supernatural threat and something had gone wrong, but there was no evidence that he had come in contact with a supernatural being that he would need to trap when he could just kill it outright. Unless there was another missing piece of the puzzle that removed the binder rings from this equation and put them in a second one that needed solving.

But that still left the most obvious answer that Alucard killed two humans in their nightclothes and staked them in the front lawn.

Unless... But... If... All scrabbling and clutching for straws without grasping anything concrete.

_“You’re missing the most obvious clue, you dim-witted boy!”_

The memory of his Aunt “Mads” Madlaine voice rang through his head, clear as a bell as if she were standing over him at the work table, scolding him for failing to discern the type of monster he faced in a hypothetical scenario fast enough. Of all his teachers, she was the worst: his father’s sister, quick as the tri-whip she wielded, and just as stinging with her words when she lashed them down on him.

_“Quick, quick! Poor helpless villagers are dying because you don’t know what you’re fighting. There goes little Timmy the choir boy with his entrails hanging out – no saving him now. There’s someone’s grandma splattered across the town hall. Oh, dear, the well has been poisoned with the bodies of dead children.” Her long black-brown braid hung down her back like a hangman’s rope, swinging back and forth with every rigorous bob and shake of her head, her grey eyes like storm clouds in her sharp, angular face as she glared down at the frustrated young Trevor Belmont._

_“I don’t know! I can’t tell!” he snapped back sullenly, thirteen and frustrated that he wasn’t as quick as his cousins, wasn’t as fast as his older sister in a race, wasn’t as strong as his older brother — yet, he swore._

_“Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Look!” Aunt Mads exclaimed, her calloused finger jabbing the paper in front of him._

_“I am looking! I don’t have all the information.”_

_“You don’t always get all the information, out in the field. That’s the dumb luck of this line of this trade. Look at what you do have; it’s enough to get your answer. You’re just looking too closely. Or not closely enough.”_

_“Well, which is it?”_

_“How am I supposed know how you look at things? My God, you’re like your father: just run in and start stabbing things, that’ll fix it.”_

_“Well, wouldn’t it?”_

_“Look again, brat!”_

What was he missing? If he only ever had the evidence in front of him, what was wrong with it? What was he missing? He kept turning it over and over in his head and kept coming back to if’s and but’s and maybe’s and unless’s. What was staring him in face that he wasn’t seeing?

The bodies.

The nightclothes.

The bedsheet.

The binder rings.

Alucard.

The bodies.

The nightclothes.

The bedsheet.

The binder rings...

“Ugh! Fuck!” he snapped, thumping his forehead with his fist, stopping in his tracks. “We need to find the bloody bedroom where that came from.”

_“Fool.”_

Trevor shook his head vigorously, shaking the memory of Aunt Mads away with it.

Sypha nodded, crumpling the bedsheet between her hands. “We will have to see if we can find the binder rings; perhaps we’ll get lucky and find both.”

“That is never how my life works,” Trevor grumbled. He sighed, hanging his head, and turned towards the opening in the room. “Come on, we’re not done yet—”

He stopped short, the hairs raising on the back of his neck with the sudden start of being snuck up on: he hadn’t even sensed anything, no clue that they had been watched for who knew how long they had been in that room. He took a step back defensively as Alucard stepped out from the shadows into the room, the glint of his eyes hovering between gold and scarlet red set in a face of stone.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, everything comes together and is revealed! dun-dun-dun :)


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor uncovers the truth. More hurt, still not at the comfort yet.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” Alucard closed the gap between them, his fists clenched at his sides. “You have no right to be here.”

“We were looking for you,” Trevor replied just as coldly, refusing to step back as he wheeled around to face Alucard. Drawing himself to his full height, he glared down at Alucard with the few inches he had as an advantage over him, his hands resting on his whips. “We want answers.”

“You have had all the answers you will get. Now, get out.” Alucard jerked his head over his shoulder for emphasis, but did not move from where he stood square on to Trevor, blocking the exit as they faced off against each other.

“Not until you tell us what happened.”

“I told you what happened. I killed two humans and… ah,” he cocked his head to the side, ““desecrated your family home” with their corpses, I believe was the phrasing you used.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It was good enough for you yesterday.”

“I’m older and wiser today.”

“Oh please,” Alucard sneered. “You’ve had the last three decades to become older and wiser; and still you’re just a drunkard with nothing more than a family crest and a whip.”

His gaze flicked briefly to Trevor’s weapons, still buckled in their loops on his belt under his hands.

“And a hold of magical and supernatural artefacts that’s missing a pair of Binding Rings.” Trevor watched Alucard’s face closely: the muscle in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth together, before his expression shifted to hide any visible emotion from them and left a blank, stony stare in its wake.

Raising a questioning eyebrow, Trevor's eyes dropped to Alucard’s wrists, carefully covered by the loose, ruffled cuffs of his sleeves and drawn a little further back at his sides than natural, as if he wanted to hide them but resisted. Trevor reached forward to grab one, and Alucard sprang back with a low, rumbling growl deep from his belly, pulling his lips back and baring his fangs.

Trevor stared back, eyes narrowed. “Let me see your wrists.”

“You’ll see me in hell before you see my wrists.”

“I am really fucking tempted to take you up on that—”

“Trevor!”

“—but for God’s sake Alucard I am trying to be patient with you,” he continued through gritted teeth, flexing his fingers to stop himself from just grabbing the whips and wringing Alucard’s bloody neck with them. “What the fuck happened with those two humans?”

_Look, boy._

“I told you what happened.” Alucard uncurled his fists, revealing long, wickedly curved talons like ten slender knives on each of his fingers. “And if you don’t leave, the same will happen to you.”

“You wouldn’t hurt us, Alucard,” Sypha argued, appearing by Trevor’s side, the bedsheet abandoned on the floor. “I know you wouldn’t.”

Despite her words, her fingers still created the initial shapes for elemental conjuring, her eyes drifting between Trevor with his whips and Alucard with his talons.

Alucard snorted. “You don’t know as much as you think you do, Speaker.”

“Speak to her like that again and I’ll have _you_ on a pike, I swear to God—”

“Trevor, don’t, he’s upset—”

“Don’t you _dare_ tell me what I am!”

Trevor unhooked the whips from his belt with a practiced flick of his thumbs, their loops coiling to the floor like snakes.

Alucard hissed threateningly, his eyes sinking to Morning Star and back to Trevor’s gaze, his lips pulling up into a taunting sneer.

Sypha grabbed Trevor's arm to prevent him from wielding Morning Star, raising her free hand palm-out to Alucard, twisting to stand between them and block the impending attack from either side.

“Go ahead, Hunter,” Alucard goaded. “Save humanity from the evil Dhampir who slit two of their throats and bled them out without a second thought.”

“If you keep pushing me, Alucard, I wi—” Trevor stopped short, blinking at Alucard as the scene of his investigation last night slammed to the forefront of his mind so hard it felt like Aunt Mads had just slapped him up the back of his head, just to throw it to the front of brain in impatience.

Fuck.

_Took you long enough._

Typical. He had looked so closely at the evidence that he’d looked _too_ closely, bypassing the most conspicuous indication that something more sinister had happened beyond what they saw on the surface level. The jigsaw rearranged itself; every morsel of information he’d collected over the last twelve hours, every word that had been spoken between them, the pieces flipping over and rearranging themselves to form a rapid succession of scenes playing out in his mind—incomplete, but enough that on a fundamental level he knew it was the truth. He felt sick with it to the point of near-blackout rage, his body turning cold and numb with the truth. He wished it had been something else— _anything_ else—but he didn't wish for a moment to unlearn it. Not when he had two bodies to dig up and burn on a pyre until even their dust scattered from the castle's grounds; not when he had to undo his own fuck up in the whole mess. He inhaled deeply through his nose, reigning his anger in, pulling it back. Fuck.

_There you go; you finally got your answer._

The memory of her voice didn't sound as smug as it usually did.

_I know, Aunt Mads. I know._

He closed his eyes, his posture slackening visibly that both Alucard and Sypha turned to stare at him questioningly.

“They bled out,” he repeated, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. 

Alucard blinked, his brow creasing in wary suspicion. “Yes. You saw for yourself.”

“You piked them out in front of the doors.”

“Yes, obviously,” Alucard snapped, drawing back when it became clear that Trevor wasn’t going to attack him. He folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands at his sides. “Have you suddenly become dumb, Belmont?”

“They were in their nightclothes.”

“Trevor?” Sypha asked. “What are you getting at?”

Alucard rolled his eyes, scoffing. “You evidently have become an idiot. Vampires hunt at night, in case you’ve forgotten. Of course, they would be in their nightclothes.”

Trevor bit the inside of his cheek before he spoke the next words, his hands curling into fists before going loose. “Except they weren’t.”

Considering how pale Alucard was, it was easy not to notice how much colour he actually held in his cheeks until it all drained out the moment the words left Trevor’s mouth. Trevor carefully kept his face neutral as he held Alucard’s gaze, his golden eyes flickering with the storm clearly wreaking chaos through him, drawing his arms tighter around himself; Trevor saw the jump of his pulse at the side of his throat, the strain of the tendons in his neck as he clenched his jaw shut, as if frightened he'd confirm the truth if he opened his mouth again. Then he caught Sypha’s face in his peripheral vision, her bright blue doe eyes wide with concern and confusion: the abrupt change in both Trevor’s and Alucard’s temperament throwing her for a loop.

“Trevor, what are you talking about?”

Perhaps not completely out of the loop: the trepidation in the quaver of her voice suggested she had an idea of what he was implying, but refused to believe it until she heard it spoken aloud. He flicked his gaze back to Alucard, holding it steady even as Alucard began to take on the impression of a rabbit caught in a trap; his pupils blown wide as he stared at Trevor, his shoulders inching up to his ears, guarding the curve of his neck.

“You redressed them,” Trevor said, careful with his tone; neither accusatory or pitying.

“No,” Alucard retorted far too quickly. His arms tightened around his body, locking his hands protectively under them and hiding his wrists between the fabric folds of his shirt.

“Every blood vessel in their throats were sliced, right down to the bone,” Trevor explained, as if Alucard didn’t already know what he had done. “It would have soaked everything they wore; their nightclothes didn’t have nearly enough for them to have been wearing them when they died. They were naked.”

“ _No_.” Alucard half shook his head in an aborted attempt at denial, the gap between the three of them increasing as he shifted restlessly, shuffling back and forth between retreat and advance and holding ground.

“You said they had trespassed where they should not have,” Trevor said quietly. “That’s what you said, when we asked you why they were staked out by the door.”

Alucard visibly swallowed, the apple of his throat jumping as cold beads of sweat began to form over his visible skin. His shoulders trembled like he was standing in the middle of winter with no clothes to protect him from the freeze. He shook his head again, his gaze somewhere far off over Trevor’s shoulder, the gold in his irises swallowed by the black pit of his pupils.

“Alucard—”

“No!”

“Oh… Oh my God.” Sypha clapped her hands over her mouth, horrified as the realisation hit her and she could not deny it any longer, tears brimming in the corners of her eyes. “Oh my God—Alucard!”

“Don’t you dare!” he snapped, his eyes focusing and pinning on her as he stepped out of her reaching hand. “Don’t you dare speak to me that way! You don’t know what happened! You have no idea!”

“I think I have an idea,” Trevor said carefully, curling one hand around Sypha’s arm and gently pulling her back, giving Alucard space as he rocked agitatedly on the spot. “Those two show up and seduce you; they probably sell you some sob story that they need help against a creature they can’t defeat on their own and work their way into your trust until you let them into the Belmont Hold.”

“No… No, that’s not—” Alucard cut off, pressing his lips together in a thin, pale line and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Then they steal the Binding Rings, and they just have to wait for the right moment to use them on you.”

Alucard shook his head vehemently, beginning to pace restlessly back and forth like a caged animal. “You have it wrong… They wouldn’t… Not if I… If I had…”

“Then they come to you one night, pretending to desire you, and they force you into a position where you—"

“They didn’t force me into anything!” Alucard denied loudly, whirling around and glaring at Trevor.

His patience slipping—if he were a better man, he would weather Alucard's attempts to conceal the truth, but unfortunately, he was Trevor fucking Belmont—he glared back. “They didn’t force you? What—did you _ask_ them to put the Binders on you? Did you tell them you _wanted_ them to use them?”

“Trevor!” Sypha reprimanded, shock giving way to anger at his accusatory tone.

“What do you know? What do you possibly know about what I want?” Alucard snarled with a shake of his head, eyes narrowed into arrowhead flints under a heavy brow. “You don’t know anything about me. You don't know anything about _them_.”

“I know about those Binding Rings. They don’t work unless the captured creature is vulnerable or extremely weak, and they’re only used for one reason.” Trevor stabbed a finger at Alucard, the whip in his hand loosening it's loops like a snake waking up. “They cause excruciating pain for anything not human; they put them on you when you were at your most vulnerable, and then they tried to kill you. They had to have tried to kill you, because you wouldn’t kill a human unless you had no other choice. That’s not you, Alucard.”

“But then you staked them out front and pretended to be the monster in this whole scenario… why? Why not just tell us the truth?”

“I told you the truth: I killed two humans and made an example of them,” Alucard spat: shoulders hunched forward, jaw tense, pulse jumping in his neck, his eyes wild with venomous anger. “Anything else is irrelevant; now, get the hell out of my castle, or you’ll replace them.”

Trevor narrowed his eyes, sensing the change in the air, escalating as Alucard continued to pace erratically, less a caged animal and more a predator ready to pounce, looking up at them from under the sharp dip of his brows with a hiss. Trevor swung his arm out and swept Sypha back, moving himself further between them, his eyes following Alucard’s stalking footsteps across the floor. Beside him, Sypha tensed, her hands curling into fists.

“Alucard, we’re not going to fight you.”

 _I don’t think he’s giving us a choice,_ Trevor thought drily, readjusting his hold on the whips in his hands. _Oh well, unlucky me._

“We’re not leaving, Alucard,” he said confidently. “And you’re not going to kill us.”

Trevor had the breath of a second to re-evaluate that particular hypothesis before Alucard lunged at him in a blur, and he pushed Sypha out of the way— _"Sypha, stay back!"—_ as Alucard’s lengthened nails dug into the thick meat of his arm, blood spurting from the puncture wounds. Trevor grunted in pain, dropping his whips and spinning on the ball of his foot; dragging Alucard around with the momentum, he threw him into the wall and pressed his injured arm across his chest and throat.

Alucard hissed, pushing his face close to Trevor’s and baring his fangs. Trevor recoiled with a start, cursing the instinct to put distance between himself and a vampire as he tucked his chin down to protect his throat. His teeth ground together he tried to pry Alucard’s fingers from his arm, his forearm throbbing with his pulse as his sleeve soaked through with blood. “Let go, you bastard!”

Alucard kicked his thighs and shins for his trouble, twisting his fingers in the wounds until Trevor yelled wordlessly in pain. He pushed harder against Alucard as he tried to wriggle out of the pin Trevor held him in against the wall. Gripping his collar, he pulled Alucard back and slammed him into the wall again to dislodge him, the whole thing bending with a threatening grumble of strain and sending a shelf of books tumbling to the floor around their feet. Trevor slipped on one when he tried to recenter his stance, his leg sliding out from underneath him and dragging them both along the room, stumbling for balance. “Fuck!”

Planting the soles of his boots against the wall, Alucard pushed them away from it, off-balancing Trevor and knocking them both to the floor. They dragged the writing desk with them and sent the drawers of long-dried ink and brittle quills scattering across the burned rug and scorched floorboards, the glass phials smashing into tinkling crystal pieces that reflected light along the walls as they flew through the air.

Rolling across the floor in a tangle of limbs, they traded blow for blow, fists glancing off jaws and elbows digging into the soft meat of the abdomen, knees trapping kicking legs and feet. The sound of cracking wood matched their rough tumbling, splinters raining on their heads when one of their strikes went wide and missed, connecting with the furniture in the room instead. Trevor fell back on the defence, rolling Alucard across the floor and trying to pin him: Alucard slipped from his grasp each time, twisting and rolling his wrists and arms out of Trevor’s attempted locks on his limbs. Jerking away from an attempted bite to his wrist, Alucard used Trevor’s recoil to push them both up from the floor again with inhuman ease, elbowing him under the ribs and following with an uppercut to the chin, knocking Trevor back.

Trevor instinctively grabbed Alucard’s shirt, fisting it in his hand as he stumbled, dragging Alucard with him. He heard the rough, jagged rip as the material loosened in his fingers, and Alucard shrieked in his ears, shoving him against the wall and pinning him there. Dropping Alucard’s shirt, Trevor braced his arms across Alucard’s chest, gripping his collar to anchor him and bar Alucard from advancing any closer, his jaw opened wide to bite down on flesh.

Winded, he matched Alucard’s vicious, blood thirsty glare, before his eyes fell to the gaping rip in Alucard’s shirt, and his lips twisted into something between a grimace and a grim, vindicated half-smile.

“ _That’s_ not irrelevant,” Trevor panted, staring at the crisscross scars striping the exposed cut of skin of Alucard’s chest and shoulder. His gaze flicked back up to meet Alucard’s, and their eyes locked briefly over the line of their crossed arms, straining against the block of the other. Neither yielded to the other’s pushing, trapped in place between the ruins of the bed and the broken set of drawers next to it. Then Alucard jerked back, causing Trevor to fall forward, off balance with the sudden loss of Alucard’s weight bracing against him; Alucard drew his fist back and swung it into his jaw with an audible crack, throwing him backwards against the wall.

White spots flashed in his vision, pain lancing through his head where it smacked against the wall, and he crumpled to the floor, his shoulder colliding with the broken bedpost on the way down, his opposite elbow greeting the frame of the drawers and sending pins and needles all the way up and down his arm where it hit the wrong spot. He grunted in pain, blinking dazedly from the throbbing in his head, squashed inelegantly in the narrow space between the debris of the ruined furniture.

“Trevor!” Sypha cried, running to his side and sweeping the splintered wood off of him, helping him into a more upright sitting position. She brushed her hands through his hair, checking for any head wounds as he gathered his wits back to him. A shadow fell over them both, and they looked up at Alucard towering over them.

His chest laboured for breath, panting audibly from the force of his lungs trying to draw in enough air, hunched over himself like a puppet with half its strings cut. His crimson eyes stared unseeing at them, wavering between focus and blank distance; his whole body shivered with adrenaline, his hands trembling as they clawed at his shirt to hide the vibrant, welted scars that branded his pale skin: on how far down they went, Trevor was confident that he had uncovered the truth that he could take an educated guess how much of Alucard’s body had been in direct contact with the wires of the Binding Rings.

Pushing himself forward, he braced his arms on his knees, staring up at Alucard calmly, despite his heart racing in his chest like a spooked horse. “Alucard—”

Alucard didn’t seem to hear him, his slackened face blanched of colour and coated with sweat, fat, heavy beads of it sliding from his temples down his cheek and over the angle of his jaw. His knuckles were colourless where they gripped the material of his shirt, his fist pressing hard over his heart.

“Alucard.” Trevor pushed himself to his feet, aided by Sypha when his knee almost buckled under him, and they faced Alucard without encroaching in his space.

“Adrian,” Sypha said quietly, when he would not respond to his other name.

Suddenly his eyes focused in bloody pinpoints, and in a blink of an eye he was inches from them, hissing breathlessly through his teeth. “Get. _Out_. By nightfall, or you’ll both be on the pikes by the door.”

Another blink, and a rush of air that scattered the dust and loose, ripped papers across the floor, and Alucard was gone, leaving them once again in the middle of the wreckage of the bedroom.

Several long, silent seconds passed, only the sound of their uneven breathing in their ears. Then Sypha sagged, slumping down onto the bed; bracing her arms on her knees, her head hung low to her chest. With a sigh, Trevor dropped onto the mattress beside her, looking around at the floor. Spotting the old, discarded bedsheet from earlier, he found a section that hadn't been stained by the nameless strangers' blood, and wrapped it around his injured arm, cinching it tight to stem the blood flow. Flexing his fingers to check it wasn't too tight, he swung an arm around Sypha's shoulders and rubbed her arm comfortingly. She leaned into his side wordlessly, sinking into the heat of him.

“This is all our fault,” she said, covering her face with one hand.

Trevor shook his head at the blame. “No. No, it isn’t.”

“We left him here.”

“That doesn’t mean we left an open invitation to anybody to come and… and attack him,” Trevor finished clumsily, rubbing his eyes. He didn’t want to repeat it twice in one day; the revelation made him feel sick, a heavy weight sitting low in his stomach that made him taste the sour acid of bile in the back of throat every time he thought about what had happened to Alucard. God; he had even been fully committed to playing the role of the villain, ready to fight Trevor to the death to keep the truth from them, and Trevor would have just run in swinging blindly with knee-jerk anger like a dumb brute.

_We taught you better than that, brat._

_Yeah. I thought you had, Aunt Mads._

“We should never have left.”

Trevor hummed in disagreement, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t have solved anything.”

“How can you say that?” Sypha demanded, wheeling round on him with a hurt expression.

“How can you say that us being here wouldn’t have stopped those two… _people_ …” she spat the word like she meant something very different, “from hurting him? That we couldn’t, or wouldn’t, have defended him?”

“I’m not _saying_ that this would still have happened,” Trevor argued, holding his hands up in surrender. “If we had been here, yes, of course, we wouldn’t have let anything happen to him. I’d have put them on pikes myself—”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Trevor conceded, flicking his hands up in a half shrug, tilting his head towards her. “I wouldn't be much nicer than that, but they wouldn’t have gotten close enough to him to do that to him in the first place. I know that.”

“But if it had never happened…” he continued, straightening and rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “If it was just the three of us; how well do you think we all would’ve coped being around each other every day, in the same place as the day before? You, with your wanderlust, stuck in this one place, never travelling beyond the neighbouring town; Alucard adjusting to life with two people he’d known for less than a week always in his space?”

“I can’t… I can’t ignore the rest of the world, Sypha,” Trevor continued, dropping his hands to his lap and ducking his head down. “As much as they’ve fucked me over, as much as they can be just as vile—worse, even—than the night creatures, I can’t ignore humanity. And I know; neither can you.”

“God, I would love to, sometimes, but I couldn’t have stayed here, not forever: not when there’s still night creatures out hunting every night, not when there are men like the Judge in the world. I couldn’t have stayed here and pretended it’s not happening, every day and night; not on the graves of my family, not in the shadow of the monument of everything they stood against, no matter who its master is now.” Trevor sighed heavily, tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling as if the answers would be there.

Sypha stared up at him in silence, her face softened in understanding and some reluctant agreement; despite the protests and arguments that sat on the tip of her tongue, she knew they would ring false to her own ears, and that there was truth in Trevor’s words. She had been born in the back of a wagon, her mother surrounded by the older women of their caravan, providing support in the way that only those who had experienced childbirth first hand could give. Her grandfather used to tell her of how her father had restlessly paced the length of their campsite from the moment her mother was ushered to the birthing bed to the moment Tala, the midwife— _may her soul have found peace_ —had brought her out under the twilight painted sky in a handwoven blanket and presented her to her father.

She was proud of her heritage, her people; where she walked they walked with her, for wherever she found herself, she would gather all the knowledge and the stories and would pass them all on when she returned, so that their shared knowledge would expand and continue to the next generation. She was also proud of her Magician abilities; they gave her the strength to fight for those who could not fight for themselves, whether they offered their gratitude or their superstitious resentment towards her, to protect the helpless against man and creature alike. She also loved Trevor, and would walk with him for as long as their paths ran side by side, whether it only be one short year or the rest of their lives. She knew which one she secretly wished for, but would not deny the powers that be if they found that their paths inevitably diverged from one another.

The only complication she had not had the intuition to foresee whatever plans she or the universe laid out for her, was how she was suddenly struck with how she much she cared for Alucard as well.

“He should’ve come with us,” she finally said.

Trevor shook his head, closing his eyes. “He had no intention of coming with us; he had no intention of ever leaving this castle again, and if he did, he didn’t share it with us.”

Sypha said nothing, rubbing her eyes with her fingertips.

“We can’t read his mind, Sypha.”

“I know, I know… I just…” she trailed off with a sigh. Digging into the folds of her robes, she pulled out the two dolls he had made in their likeness, stroking their cheeks with her thumbs. “He missed us. He had _some_ sort of intention with us.”

Trevor stared at them over her shoulder in silence, finding no answer to her statement.

Eventually she tucked them back into her robe carefully. Leaning forward, she dropped her chin to her chest and closed her eyes, breathing deep to focus herself, clasping her hands between her knees. “What are we going to do, now?”

Trevor exhaled a breath that ruffled the mess of his bangs, shifting to mimic her posture. “Well, I’ve got a bad idea, or a terrible idea; which would you prefer?”

“Only one terrible one?” Sypha repeated, cocking her head. “I am impressed; what is the bad idea?”

“We ignore Alucard’s threats and wait to see what he does.”

Sypha pulled a contemplative face. “Definitely a bad idea; he is very upset, and while I don’t think he would follow through on his threat, I do not think it would go much better than this.”

“That’s why I suggested we wait for him to come find us, rather than go looking for him again. He obviously doesn’t want us around right now, but, well…” Trevor trailed off, nodding to the pocket in her robe that held the puppets. She nodded in return.

“No, I agree,” she said. “He did not want us to even know what really happened; that is another hurt that we are a part of. Was seeking him out the terrible idea?”

“No.” Trevor shook his head. “My terrible idea was doing exactly what he says.”

“Yes. That is a terrible idea.”


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trevor and Sypha make a plan, and Alucard struggles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alucard was very difficult to get in his head, and I still don't think I did well transferring what I wanted this chapter to be from concept to final result. I think this is a chapter I'm going to have to edit again and expand on with Alucard's introspection a bit more. I'm really not as proud with this chapter as I have been with the others, and since its the first chapter being in Alucard's head, it's doubly disappointing.
> 
> Some CW for this chapter: self-blame, victim blaming, disassociation, PTSD. 
> 
> A symptom of Alucard's PTSD is denial of the events and how they happened. This leads to him blaming himself that this happened to him, with the belief that if he had done something different then this could have been avoided. This in no way reflects my own opinions and is wrong: he is not responsible for what happened to him, this is just how his PTSD symptoms developed within my fic. He also disassociates and loses time, as well as not feeling entirely rooted in reality. If any of this is particularly upsetting to you, please proceed with caution or avoid altogether and come back for the next chapter. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience and your response to this fic, I hope those who read this chapter enjoy it.

They made their way back to the kitchen where they'd entered, depositing themselves tiredly in the chairs on opposite sides of the table. Sypha withdrew the two dolls from her robes, one held delicately in each hand, and studied their beaded faces. She glanced at the ledge where she had found them, the kitchen utensil limbs still lying haphazardly across the shelf; she considered placing them back where they had sat for who knew how long, but she found herself unable to relinquish them back to their lonely shelf, the evident care and devotion Alucard had put into each fold and stitch pulling on something deep inside her she couldn’t name. So, she couldn’t let them go.

She carefully tucked them back into the folds of her robe and leaned forward, her whole upper body drooping in exhaustion.

"So, what is your plan while we wait for Alucard to show up again?" she asked, folding her arms on the table. She stifled a yawn against her shoulder, shaking her head to clear it.

"That, actually," Trevor replied, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. He tipped back in his chair idly, bracing one knee against the edge of the table, and pointed at her with emphasis. "We haven't slept, and we're gonna need to get some soon."

"What? I'm fine," Sypha argued around another yawn. Trevor raised an eyebrow, folding his arms across his chest.

"Uh huh."

"Well, alright,” Sypha conceded, rubbing her eye with her sleeve cuff. “I’ll admit we must sleep eventually, but…”

She trailed off, glancing around the kitchen. Trevor shook his head, as if reading her mind.

“I’m… not confident sleeping in the castle is the safest option for us right now,” he admitted. “As much as I’m willing to gamble against Alucard’s threats, I’m not risking pissing him off any more than we already have.”

“Hmm.” Sypha lay her head down on her arms. “So, what do you suggest?”

“Head back out to the wagon, put a protective circle around us while we sleep.”

“What?” She shot back up, staring at Trevor aghast. “Trevor! You cannot seriously ask me to do that!”

“Why not?” Trevor shrugged. “You want to sleep in shifts?”

“No, I—” Sypha sighed, rubbing her eyes and shaking her head exasperatedly. She gestured with both hands in sharp, choppy motions, as if explaining to an idiot. “Trevor, how are you going to explain to Alucard that we were sleeping inside a protective circle if he comes across us, after saying you believe he wouldn’t attack us?”

“I’ll say I’m preparing for every possibility,” he answered. He cocked his head to the side, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “There _is_ a chance that he’ll follow through with his threats; it doesn’t matter how small that chance is, I can’t take the risk to rule it out.”

“Trevor,” Sypha replied patiently. She clapped her hands together as if in prayer, resting them along the bridge of her nose and her forehead. “Have you considered the possibility of how upset he’d be if he discovered we warded ourselves against him?”

They stared at each other across the table for a beat, before Trevor thinned his lips, folding his arms across his chest stubbornly. Sypha folded her arms, leaning over the table closer to him.

“You can’t tell him he’s not a monster and then treat him like one,” she said quietly.

That brought his gaze back to hers, her startling blue eyes boring into him. He sighed, lowering the chair onto all four legs again and dropped his head.

“Fine; you have a point, but I still don’t want to leave us unprotected,” he argued. “So, compromise? Can you put a protective circle around us that would only activate if he _genuinely_ means us harm? That way, he doesn’t have to know it’s there for his feelings to be hurt, and if he does find out it’s there, I don’t have to worry about his feelings. Sound fair?”

Sypha pursed her lips, before she nodded slowly. A basic ward against malice and danger both supernatural and mundane would work for what Trevor asked; they regularly warded themselves and the horses with it if they couldn’t get to a village in time before nightfall, and it protected them from wolves as well as night creatures. Alucard wouldn’t likely be surprised to them using one, considering their line of work, and if he couldn’t cross it… well, she supposed Trevor was right that they wouldn’t have to worry about his feelings in that case.

Still, hope sat quietly in her chest with a whisper she needn’t worry about that happening. Alucard wouldn’t harm them.

“Alright,” Trevor said, pressing his hands on the table and pushing himself onto his feet. “Time to get some sleep.”

He glanced at the door leading out of the kitchen, before looking at Sypha.

“So, I don’t suppose you know how do we get to front door?”

Sypha cocked her head to the side, humming in thought. She raised a finger, and pointed to the window they had climbed through earlier.

Trevor pursed his lips, and he heaved a sigh. “Ah, fuck.”

*

Alucard awoke with a violent start, lurching forward in his chair, clawing deep into the fabric of the arms. His eyes flickered around his father’s study, his heart hammering in his chest; the room focused in front of him, orientating him in its familiarity, and he fell back in the high, wing-backed chair with a gasp, covering his eyes with one hand pried from the thick cushioned padding of the armchair. His head throbbed heavily behind the dimness of his eyelids, the morning light spilling into the room and making his headache worse. He dug his fingers into his forehead, as if he could pry out the pain that was squeezing his brain, and sunk deeper into the chair, his neck and shoulders rigid with stiff tension from half-sleeping half-upright.

Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself out of the chair and staggered to the window, bracing himself on the ledge with locked arms as he squinted against the stinging sunlight at the rolling forest banking the Belmont estate. Dipping his tired, heavy eyes to the ground far below his window, his gaze fell on the crumbled ruins of the manor, and the wagon that still sat close in the shade of the north wall, guarded from the elements and the sun throughout the day. Two horses grazed nearby, water buckets planted on flat earth to keep them hydrated.

They were still here.

He dropped his chin to his chest, his sleep-tousled hair tumbling over his shoulders and curtaining his face. His fingers gripped the window frame so hard it groaned in protest, tremors shooting up his arms and down his back, till he could feel his knees threatening to give way under him. He swallowed thickly, feeling the rapid pulse of his heart in his scratchy, parched throat, matching the sickening tempo of the pounding in his brain.

They were _still_ _here_.

He hadn’t expected——

Or perhaps he had, he just hadn’t thought——

But he hadn’t been thinking, really——

What the fuck _was_ he thinking?

He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. His mind wouldn’t settle, everything blurring together between the days and the sleepless nights, the heart-jolting panic that plagued him whenever he closed his eyes too long and the painful memories that haunted him whenever he kept them open too long. He felt nauseous all the time, his headache never easing, beyond tired, beyond exhausted; still the days seemed to pass both with and without him, barely a memory left in his head of what he did during sun up and sun down, the nights drudging along, long and slow, the darkness sinking claws and teeth into him and keeping him paralysed as shadows danced on the walls in familiar, whispering silhouettes.

Then, there they were: the triumphant heroes returning to slay the beast and save humanity. Invading his castle, rifling through his things, prying into things they had no right——

He slammed his hand against the window frame, the wood shrieking in protest under the force of his strike, trying not to think of them… any of them, all of them occupying his mind with stubborn persistence, his thoughts cycling through them like the ticking hands of a clock, one replacing another replacing another. Sumi. Taka. Sypha. Trevor. Sumi. Sypha. Trevor. Taka.

Sypha.

Trevor.

He lay his forehead against the window pane, the cool glass soothing against the heat of his skin. The flare of the sun through the glass warped the outside world into blurred swathes of blues and greens, fractals dancing across his vision. He closed his eyes against the hard glare of it, wishing childishly that he could close his eyes to all of it; he only wanted to rest, find peace in sleep far away from the reality of staked humans and disgusted monster hunters and pitying Speakers. There had been no hesitation in Trevor to lay the—— _incident_ ——out bare and speak as though he knew what had happened that night between the three of them. He clenched his teeth, exhaling a shaky breath. 

He had only wished to _help_ them.

Help them learn.

Help them protect their kin.

Help them save humanity.

Help them kill his father.

He opened his eyes, his hands withdrawing from the vice hold on the window frame and curled them into fists against the wood. The pale, shiny red lines around his wrists peeked out from under his ruffled cuffs, fading into a haze as tears welled up and tracked thin lines down his cheeks, dripping from his chin onto the window ledge. His skin felt too tight, trapping him in his body in a reality that felt too real and not real enough; they were still. Here.

He had threatened and he had fought and he had given them the fucking monster they all thought he was; still, it wasn’t enough. They gambled on his threat, as if he wouldn’t betray them the same way and stick them on pikes. They had already removed the evidence of his sins, the reminder of what he’d done concealed deep in the cold earth, as if that would grant him forgiveness and redemption from being a monster. Perhaps if he’d been better than what he was, more than what he was, they never would have… done what they had done.

His failure weighed too heavy on his shoulders, crushing his breath in his lungs the longer he stood motionless, and he found himself pushing away from the window, turning away and out of the room. Moving mindlessly through his castle, the long, dark hallways stretched far off into black shadows, closing around him like the throat of a great behemoth, the high rib-cage ceilings of crisscrossing beams rattling with the wind breathing through them. His footsteps left neither prints in the dust nor echoes in the emptiness; he was no more than a ghost in an oversized grave, the castle that had once been his home now a mausoleum of memories that he wished to forget: good or bad, they were all too painful.

His silent footsteps brought him to a familiar corridor, stopping in front of a familiar room. He blinked dazedly, looking around him as if to seek out some other force that must have brought him to the door of his former bedroom: not much of a door, anymore, the gauged-out wood propped askew in the dented frame, claw marks scoring deep into the structure. It creaked as it settled and resettled, not quite closing fully with the lock broken to fragments on the floor. 

An unyielding compulsion overcame him, staring at the damage of the door, and he watched as if from outside his body as he lifted his trembling hand and pressed it against the flat plane of the door. His heartbeat thrummed through his ears with a single, dull, rushing hum, the beats indistinguishable from each other; he heard it from afar, his senses underwater and drifting between reality and not reality as he pushed open the door.

With a long, slow cry it opened for him to gaze upon the destruction he had wreaked through it: a shattered bed frame, solid oak torn apart like confetti. Shredded bed sheets and pillows, feather down and bed entrails pulled apart and streaked across the rumpled rugs on the floor. Curtains and canopy hangings splattered with old blood sliced to pieces like a wild animal had been let loose on them; curtain rods pulled from the walls; furniture overturned and smashed to pieces; linen strewn across the floor among broken glass and splintered wood. Deep claw marks gored the walls, the fittings and the fixtures, wild and uncontrolled. In the centre of it all, untouched, lay his sword gleaming silver in the light spilling through the broken window.

Nausea turned his stomach, bile rising dangerously high in his throat as he stumbled back from the scene, shivering uncontrollably. One hand closed around his other wrist and squeezed until his fingers spasmed. His breath whistled through his teeth in a high keening whine, ragged and shallow; cold sweat prickled his brow, running down the nape of his neck. Red blanketed his vision; the bright splatter of fresh blood across white drapes, bubbling from slit necks in frothing rivers, puddling on sweat-slick bed sheets. Dried onto his hands, dried into his hair, clumping and sticky with viscera, sour and acidic smelling.

He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think: the sword trembled where it lay, drawn by a subconscious pull from his own mind. To protect——to attack. To kill.

He tried to stop it moving; tried to force it to stillness again.

It shivered worse, rising from the bed with his rising panic. It would not stop; could not stop.

He couldn’t stop it.

He couldn’t stop.

Unable to do anything else, he turned and fled from the room.

*

Time eluded him again as he moved from a panicked run to a drifting walk, going nowhere without a conscious thought, and yet he found himself outside in the dazzling early afternoon sunlight, the shadows retreating under the castle and deep down onto the dappled forest floor. He squinted his eyes against the high sun, shielding them with one hand as he looked around at the sprawling estate grounds, the rich green grass swaying in the cool breeze, the earthen paths warm and firm underfoot. They appeared just the same as he last saw them—minus the bodies, adding the large travelling wagon squatting by the walls of the Belmont manor. His silent footsteps drew him thoughtlessly towards the covered wagon, the gentle breeze stirring his shirt and hair, sweeping across the wide lawn towards the two grazing horses nearby.

They flicked their ears and raised their heads at the scent of him, turning to stare at him approach, curious rather than afraid.

He paused, blinking at them.

The closest one blinked back, tossing its head and pawing the ground idly. Unafraid.

Frowning, he walked up to it in a disjointed daze: the sun too bright, the trees too green, the world hazy at the edges. Reality and not reality warred each other, muddying together as he raised his hand slow—so slow, like moving through honey—towards the closest horse, careful and gentle with his movements, frightened of frightening it. Yet, it stretched its head forward with a low nickering, nuzzling its nose at his palm. He watched it all happen in slow motion, somehow a part of it and apart from it: the warm, smooth muzzle speckled with a few bristles rubbing against his palm, the snort of hot breath around his fingers all seemed to be happening to someone else. He curled his hand over its nose, stroking his hand up the length of its muzzle to rest at the forelocks of its mane, before smoothing back down to its nose.

“Hello,” he murmured. “Looks like you’re still here.”

It flicked its ears forward in answer, nickering again as it jostled its head, as if it were nodding. A small smile pulled at Alucard’s lips. He continued to stroke it gently, moving up its face and over its ears as he stepped around it, smoothing out the short, soft fur of its neck, his eyes returning to the wagon sat next to the Belmont estate walls.

Patting the horse’s neck, he stepped away and continued towards the wagon: blankets draped heavily over the sides and the back, covering the entrance from view. Some part of his mind knew he shouldn’t intrude on the privacy established by the barrier; another part knew, deep down, exactly what he would see if he drew back the curtain.

He did so, his breath catching in his throat as he stared into the cosy space of the wagon bed, and the two sleepers nestled close together in a comfortable embrace, their heads pillowed on Trevor’s large, folded up cloak, their shoes and his weapons off to one side: still within reach but not an immediate thought while they slept. Trevor’s breath ruffled Sypha’s hair with each soft snore, her back pressed up close against his chest with his arm wrapped around her protectively. Her red curls tumbled across her face, hiding her face from view. In her hands, she clutched two dolls close to her chest.

His heart seemed to stop in his chest, his hand fisting the blanket tightly in his hand as he stared down at the two weak imitations of the sleeping lovers in front of him. His face burned hot at the sight of them, his ears ringing with the sudden dizzy rush that overcame him: unable to bear it, he let the blanket drop back into place soundlessly, and swiftly retreated back to the darkness of the castle halls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pet therapy - pet a dog. A horse is just a big dog, right?
> 
> I have been thinking about — and plotting to an extent — a companion piece to this fic, revolving around Isaac and Hector (specifically Isaac/Hector) and how their stories are inevitably going to collide. Would that be something people want to read in the future? It wouldn't likely be as long as this fic, as far as I can tell at the moment, but if it would still interest you, let me know please ^-^
> 
> I promise the comfort is coming ;;-;;


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stalemate is formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for the lack of update; my work shift for two weeks was almost entirely composed of two night shifts followed by two days sleeping off the night shift only to repeat the cycle, so even on my days off I was too tired to do anything creative, much to my dismay.  
> This chapter was also supposed to be the long awaited comfort chapter, but unfortunately, the characters had other ideas so I had to change my plans for this chapter and the chapters going forward. That means going back to the drawing board and re-planning the original outline. That will delay updates, but I will continue as fast as I can as I get everything ironed out.
> 
> On another note, we do step in the right direction, however small a step it might be, and I tried my hand at writing a trauma related dream. It is short and at the beginning of the chapter, only three paragraphs, but if you are uncomfortable reading things like that just scroll past everything in italic.
> 
> Enjoy  
> xXx

_She ran across a warped wasteland of ash, the rounded toe of her red shoes shiny and crisp like the skin of a ripe apple, lurid against the shifting, dull grey dust. The blackened, broken rubble of toppled buildings picketed the bent horizon like crooked teeth, gnashing at a sky of roiling, liquid fire. Sulphur burned her lungs, blackened her throat, but still she ran, her apple red shoes streaking blood behind her._

_The rumble of thunder rolled over her; the roar of a great, terrible beast preying on her, blacking out the sky. Its many hundred eyes watched her from the shadow of its face, boring into the pale skin of her back. She dared not look back upon its eldritch form, madness awaiting her should she gaze upon its twisting shape, formed from the beasts of a thousand worlds and from none at all, its breath hot and wet on the back of her legs, blistering them with the heat of it._

_She ran, panting through the choking smoke air, sluggish and slow no matter how she willed her legs to go faster until she hit a snag, a weakness in the ground, and with a crack of lightning, the ground split open and she fell into darkness, a thousand upon a thousand sharpened iron pikes rising from the gash in the world to spear through her, like they had with a thousand upon a thousand others, the bodies of the young and old broken and twisted and bleeding down the soaked red wood, their yellowed skulls grinning wide at her as she fell upon the sharp spikes, roses blooming across her flesh from the sharp iron stems. A crow cawed with a laugh above her, swooping down for her eyes._

Sypha woke with a start, jolting back and smacking against the wall of solid muscle behind her; a sleepy grunt answered her, the warm, heavy body rolling away from her pointy elbows. She blinked the nightmare away, the sight and smell of the old, creaky wagon coming into focus around her: the coloured wool blankets she bought or traded for on their travels, soft and well used on bitter cold nights; the thick, solid floor under her; the tickle of dense fur against her cheek. Trevor’s heat radiated through her back, his musk strong and familiar amidst the scent of smoothed, old pine and wool and well oiled leather. Her subconsciously induced fear dissipated; twisting where she lay, she rolled over to face him as he stretched fully awake and turned his head towards her. Tucking one hand under him, he lay the other on his chest, scratching the dark brown hair peeking through the opened collar lazily.

"Hey," he said, voice deep and raspy in his throat with the last remnants of sleep. His eyelids drooped low and heavy, his black eyelashes brushing against his cheeks, his gaze warm like a comfortable winter blanket. It calmed her racing heart, the last of her nightmare disappearing into the soft haze of sunlight peeking through with the breeze that nudged at the wagon covering.

"Hello," she replied quietly, curling up on her side and tucking her hands under her cheek.

"You alright?"

She hummed. "Just a nightmare."

"About?"

"Lindenfeld," she whispered.

The soft, half-dozing expression on his face hardened. Reaching out, he stroked his fingers softly over her hair; her eyes fluttered shut under the gentle touch.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what? You have nothing to apologise for.”

“I’m sorry you had to see that kind of evil.”

Sypha lay silent for a moment, studying Trevor’s serious face. She shuffled closer, reaching out to lay a hand on his chest. The rise and fall of it was steady her palm, his skin radiating heat through the fabric.

“I’ve seen the evil of men before,” she said eventually. “You remember I travelled under the guise of a man before I met you for a reason. Lindenfeld just… I can’t seem to get Lindenfeld out of my head; I thought after a while, it would just be another memory, like the stone-eyed Cyclops in Gresit.”

“Some things just stick with you,” Trevor replied quietly. “You don’t get to choose what haunts you; I am sorry about that, too. If you weren’t traipsing all over Wallachia with me, instead with the other Speakers, maybe your sleep would be more peaceful.”

“Perhaps, but that was my choice.” She withdrew her hand and tucked it back under her head. Her gaze drifted to the crack in the cover over the wagon door, a sliver of the black castle peeking around the edge of the heavy blanket. Glancing around, she located the two dolls that had fallen to the floor in her sleep, and set them neatly side by side between them. She stroked the soft woollen felt of their hair before she returned her hand to its place on Trevor's chest, over his heart. “I can’t imagine what Alucard has gone through these last few months.”

Trevor looked away, staring up at the ceiling of the wagon. The silence stretched between them, before Sypha broke it.

“What are you thinking?”

A frown pulled at the corners of Trevor’s mouth, his eyes crinkling with fine lines under the furrow of his brow. “Thinking about how badly I’ve fucked up.”

“This isn’t your fault either.”

Trevor exhaled heavily through his nose, rubbing his forehead. “I had an aunt…”

“Hmm?” Sypha encouraged wordlessly when he trailed off; Trevor almost never spoke of his family, and definitely never unprompted.

Trevor huffed, almost a laugh. “My father’s sister; my Aunt Madlaine. We called her Aunt Mads. Do you know what she would say to us—mostly me, honestly—whenever we spectacularly fucked up something?”

“What?”

““The cat will eat better than all of us on your tears and the spilled cream, boy; feed it and let it grow fat and lazy, or get up and do something damn useful with yourself,"” he imitated, forcing his voice higher and sharper, the hint of an accent colouring the edges.

Sypha blinked, deadpan. “She sounds like a charming woman.”

Trevor shook his head, his smile a little more genuine. “She never gave anyone or anything an inch without taking a mile right back. She was one of the many pairs of hands that shaped me into the hunter I am, today.”

He nodded over to where his weapons lay side by side, each handle directed towards him within reach, before his eyes returned to the ceiling.

“Did she… I mean… was she…” Sypha trailed off, unable to voice her question in a way that didn’t sound prying or unsympathetic. Trevor knew what she was asking, though, able to read her thoughts without trying. He shook his head.

“No, she wasn’t with the family when they came for us,” he said quietly. “She was afforded a death that very few Belmonts have the luxury of; she died in her sleep, in her own warm bed.”

“I’m…” _sorry?_ “I’m glad she passed away peacefully. It must have been a comfort to you and your family.”

“It was; we… we weren’t always able to bury a family member in one piece,” Trevor agreed. His face split into a wide grin, laughing. “She would’ve _hated_ going out like that; she’ll be fighting God himself to this day for taking her out that way. “Give me a Belmont death, or give me none at all”, she’d always say. She was… it felt like she really would live forever, as mad as that sounds.”

Sypha reached out and lay her hand on his chest again, comforting. He lowered his hand to cover hers, stroking her skin gently.

“She sounds like she would have been formidable against any night creature,” she said.

“I think you two would’ve gotten along quite well, if she was still alive.”

“Really?”

Trevor hummed, nodding his head. He continued to stroke her hand as they lapsed into silence, listening to the rustling leaves in the breeze and the soft nickering of the horses outside. The sun sat just above the treeline, marking the day in late afternoon, dimmed by the large, rolling clouds that passed over it on the path of the wind; no threat of rain, the thick volumes of cloud pale white and fluffy like swirls of cream against the pure blue of the sky. It brought a chill, but not enough to sneak into their little cocoon of warmth inside the wagon, stretched out next to each other on the bedding of Trevor’s heavy cloak.

“I know we can’t lie here forever, but it is still too early for sundown to go find Alucard,” Sypha said, curling up closer to Trevor.

“We could go back to the river; I could always do with a bath after handling those dead bodies.”

“You could always do with a bath, anyway.”

“Hey! You love my natural, manly aroma.”

“Not when it’s layered under the smell of horse and beer.” Sypha laughed, patting his chest and leveraging herself up onto her knees; Trevor grunted in discomfort under her weight and rolled upright, straightening his clothes while Sypha packed away the dolls and climbed out of the wagon. Gathering his weapons, he followed her out, squinting against the sunlight hitting his eyes. There was still heat in it through the clouds despite the crisp wind; the weather was ready to change any day with the season, the days dwindling in daylight hours and the nights growing longer, bringing with it more work for him to do.

He spotted the horses grazing contentedly close by, unaffected by their reappearance save for a flick of ears in their direction for any orders. Receiving none from him, they continued to snuffle across the lawn, chewing the greenery. Stretching his arms above his head, his joints popped in rapid satisfying succession down his spine. He arched back and rolled his shoulders, humming contentedly as his muscles released some of the stiffness from sleeping on the wagon floor, before he dropped his arms to his sides with a gentle shake.

Sypha immediately grabbed his arm, tugging at his sleeve wordlessly, and he followed her gaze to the steps of the castle—

_Ah_.

Alucard sat on the top step, tucked neatly into the shadows where the sun couldn’t reach around the corners of the castle. He had his chin propped on his clasped hands, elbows on his knees, his eyes dipped low from behind the long curtain of pale gold hair circling his head; he hadn’t noticed their exit from the wagon, or if he had, he gave no indication that he had seen them. Trading looks, Sypha nodded towards him; Trevor nodded in agreement, resigned to the disappointing knowledge that he wouldn’t be getting to bathe anytime soon, and began to follow Sypha towards the steps when the water bucket for the horses caught his eye.

_Ah._

Sypha jumped when she heard the splash behind her, whirling around in confusion as Trevor dropped the empty water bucket at his side. His head and shoulders were soaked, the water seeping through his white shirt and sticking it transparently to his chest and stomach as it spread through the thirsty fabric. He shook his head, sending water droplets flying, and pushed the thick wet strands back from his forehead, wiping the water from his face. Sypha pursed her lips, staring deadpan at him as he approached her, drying his hands on his pants.

“Well, that’s me sorted for the next month,” he said with a grin, a cold trail of water slipping down the line of his spine. He suppressed a shiver, rolling his shoulders to shift the itch it left in its wake. “Hhm, refreshing.”

“Why am I in love with you?”

“Your brain was turned to rock for a week, that’s the best hypothesis I have,” he replied, his smile softening into something fonder.

Sypha rolled her eyes, turning away and continued towards the steps.

Alucard remained statue still even when their shoes entered his line of vision, and they stood in silence for a long, weighted moment, before Trevor sighed, and flopped down a few steps lower than Alucard. The cold stone seeped through the seat of his pants, uncomfortable against his skin where the hard, rough edge of the seat above it touched his wet shirt at the small of his back. Smothering a grimace, he leaned back on his elbows, and stretched his legs down the stairs with a nonchalant air; Sypha delicately took a seat on the opposite side of Alucard on the top stair, perching on the edge of the step and clasping her arms around her knees.

Trevor shook his head again, spraying water droplets everywhere, and craned his neck to look up at Alucard. “So, can I assume you’ve changed your mind about sticking pikes up our arses, or should I prepare for an old-fashioned fight to the death?”

Alucard said nothing for a time, before he sighed and ducked his head. Laying his forehead against his hands, he hid his face from view. “Why are you here?”

“Well, we did hear some worrying news about this place; we came to see if it was true, and to help if needed,” Trevor replied, staring out across the estate grounds. He shrugged. “We’ve been pretty shit at helping since we arrived, but maybe there’s still a chance to change that.”

“What for? You had the right idea when you first arrived; slay the monster and ask questions later.”

“Do not say that Alucard,” Sypha admonished gently. “You’re not a monster.”

“Am I not?” he asked, raising his head and tilting it to one side, staring at her through the broken curtain of his pale gold hair. “The patricidal son of Dracula who killed two humans in their bed isn’t a monster?”

“It wasn’t their bed you killed them in,” Trevor corrected.

“Trevor!” Sypha hissed, throwing him a stern look. He shrugged, palms raised to the sky, undeterred by her glare, and cocked his head back to address Alucard again.

“You can’t keep the lie going any longer, Alucard, and we’re not going to blame you for something that was self-defence.”

Alucard turned his gaze towards him, eyebrows raised in high, disbelieving arches.

“I know; I thought it would be a cold day in hell before a Belmont would utter the words “self-defence” in favour of a vampire, too, but here we fucking are,” he drawled, throwing his hand up in vague circling gesture encompassing the three of them. “I’m sure all the Belmonts past are rolling in their graves—if they have one.”

“Anyway,” he continued, shaking his head. “We’re not going to kill you, so… that’s that.”

Alucard’s lips twisted into an empty smile.

““That’s that”,” he repeated. “What an eloquent solution, Belmont. I must say it is a surprising stroke of genius on your part.”

Trevor threw his hands up, exasperated. “What do you want us to say, Alucard? We’re at a stalemate, because I’m not going to raise arms against you unless you start attacking Sypha or I, so you best make up your mind as to how we proceed; otherwise none of us will get anything bloody well done.”

Alucard said nothing, letting his gaze drift back to the faraway point he had been staring into when they first approached him. Trevor sighed, hanging his head, and they descended into silence.

Sypha looked between them, studying them quietly from where she sat. Straightening up, she fished inside the folds of her robe, withdrawing the two dolls.

“Alucard,” she began softly, holding the dolls forward.

Alucard turned towards her at the sound of his name, and visibly blanched when he saw the dolls in her hands. Cringing back, he covered his eyes with one hand, his fingers digging into his forehead.

“Where did you find those damn things?” he demanded weakly.

“They were sitting in the kitchen when we came in,” Sypha explained. She pulled them closer protectively, before she extended them out to Alucard again. “They sat with you during meals, yes?”

“They’re… they’re just poppets, scraps,” he argued, waving his hand at them as if to bat them away, wrapping his free arm around his middle; he shied away from them as if in shame.

“But you made them,” she said softly, shifting closer to Alucard’s side, resting her arms across her lap. “You made them of us, because you… you missed us, didn’t you?”

“I merely wished to pass an afternoon; the resemblance is… coincidental,” he denied, shaking his head.

“You know, for the act you just put on over the last two days, you are a _terrible_ liar.”

“Alucard,” Sypha continued, shooting a glance at Trevor. “I know we did not speak much before we parted ways, and perhaps that was a mistake; we could have discussed different options—”

“Options?” Alucard sneered. “Like what? Abandoning the castle and the Hold for anyone to come and pillage it while we’re all gallivanting across the country?”

“For fucks sake, Alucard!” Trevor exploded, whirling around and jabbing a finger at him. “We are sitting on centuries worth of combined knowledge of both Dracula and the Belmonts, do you really think there isn’t _something_ in these walls that couldn’t protect it or cloak it from thieves if no one was here? If you weren’t around to bloody haunt it? God damn you, Alucard, I…”

He sighed, losing his spirit, and hung his head into his hand. His voice dropped low and weary. “I fucking told you not to make this your tomb. I _told_ you, you had a home here, it wasn’t a bloody punishment that you couldn’t leave if you wanted.”

“There is no other place for me to go, and you wouldn’t have been any wiser had I not killed them,” Alucard said after a long, silent moment, nodding to the bottom of the steps where the bodies had been stuck. “You wouldn’t have any idea about me or what I was doing.”

“We would have come back,” Sypha replied. “We were going to come back.”

Alucard scoffed in disbelief; even Trevor threw her a doubtful look, and they all fell into silence. They had reached a stalemate, at a loss for what to say.

“Alucard, we still wish to help,” Sypha began, reaching out with one hand.

He immediately flinched away from her touch, whirling around with a start, eyes wide and alarmed. Sweat bloomed on his brow, his lips parting instinctively before he snapped his mouth shut. Sypha jerked her hand back with a grimace, colour rising high on her cheeks; she bit her lip, ducking her eyes to her lap as she fiddled with the cuffs of her sleeves. Trevor watched the exchange in silence, the Belmont in him cataloguing Alucard’s touch aversion with cool, detached pragmatism; a weakness that would have been exploited in any interrogation the Belmonts might once have held.

_You’re a bastard, Trevor Belmont._

He cleared his throat; Alucard’s eyes snapped round to him, Sypha’s drifted up slowly from her lap, watery at the corners. Before he could speak, Alucard’s face hardened to cold stone, his cheeks burning red, and he shoved himself to his feet, shaking his sleeves so the cuffs covered most of his wrists and fists.

“Stay or go,” he snapped. “I don’t care what you do.”

With that, he turned and stormed up the stairs without a look back, the door slamming behind him with a force that sent shudders down the steps. Sypha winced at the loud bang of the doors against each other, and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I don’t think he wants to be touched,” Trevor stated drily, scratching his cheek with his thumbnail.

“That was foolish of me,” she replied, wiping her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “I should have known better.”

Trevor shrugged. “You wanted to comfort him. You comfort people by touching them. That’s just what you do.”

“Well, I can’t do it with him.”

“No, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that for now.” Trevor pushed himself up, brushing the dust and grit of the stairs from his pants, and beckoned for Sypha. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, taking his hand and standing. She tucked the dolls into her robes, and straightened them back into place.

“Well, Alucard is in no rush to kill us, and you obviously have no intention for us to leave any time soon, so, how about that bath in the river?” he suggested.

Sypha cocked her head in thought, pursing her lips. “That does actually sound nice; you aren’t worried about staying here a little while?”

“With how fast the news spread to reach our ears, I have no doubt that we’ll be getting visited by any number of night creatures soon enough,” he replied, as they made their way down the steps, hand in hand. “At least it means less nights on the road for us.”

“I believe we will still be sleeping in the wagon tonight, though.”

“Well, some things never change.”


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The trio receive some unexpected (or, not so unexpected?) guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This, I think, marks the turning point for the trio, so from here it's building the relationship. That means another 4-8 more chapters to develop the budding relationship and resolving how to deal with how they are to proceed with demon hunting and protecting the castle.
> 
> Also, I still hate writing fight scenes, and Alucard is a very difficult POV character to get into his head, so future edits may be necessary.
> 
> Enjoy xxx

The monsters came in the night.

They crept through the forest, stalking through the foliage without a whisper, the undergrowth undisturbed by their careful footfalls. Their eyes burned red in the darkness, the scattered moonlight through the leaves too weak to penetrate the shadows cloaking their hunched, emaciated bodies. The forest floor was devoid of life, the nocturnal inhabitants sensing the unnatural presence sneaking through their home and hiding away in their homes, waiting for the undead to pass.

The horde approached the castle in synchrony, the low, guttural grunts and growls barely discernible over the creaking of the branches over their heads, the rustle of leaves in the wind disguising their huffs of breath. They came to a stop at the edge of the treeline, a dozen or so pairs of crimson eyes scanning the grounds of the Belmont estate; silence lay heavy in the air, the castle a solid black void against the sky, casting everything around it in shadow. A small, nondescript covered wagon squatted close to the ragged stone pile that was once Belmont manor, the only signs of life the two horses that stood nervously in amongst the ruins, pawing the ground restlessly, ready to run.

One of the creatures, long bodied and beak-faced, crawled with twisted, disjointed winged limbs over the grass towards the tethered horses, white froth and saliva drooling from its mouth.

The horses reared, braying in panic as they snapped their heads back and forth, the ropes drawn tight and keeping them trapped as the creature drew closer, blades of grass rustling under its clawed wing.

Then the ground beneath it lit up with an array of glowing sigils, fire erupting up its limb.

It screamed in pain, engulfed in the flames within the blink of an eye and dying in a blackened heap on the ground.

Trevor and Sypha leapt from the wagon, a stream of white hot fire exploding from Sypha’s fingertips towards the waiting horde. Trevor’s whips cracked through the air, lightning fast and loud in the quiet.

They scattered, breaking off to either side to surround them on the terrain while the flyers took to the air. Trevor’s whip caught the foot of one ascending beast, yanking it back to the ground with a jerk of his wrist. Morning Star arced toward it before it had time to regain its feet, punching a hole through its chest and destroying it in a flurry of bright orange flames that sent dark, erratic shadows dancing across the ground.

The winged night creatures shrieked in response, swooping overhead towards the castle, leading those loping along the ground after them. A wall of ice rose up in front of them, the cold radiating from it and freezing the dew on the grass, turning the green blades stiff and crisp under the frost. Sypha’s hands danced through the air in conjuring shapes, forcing them to turn back and face them.

A trio of hunched, dog like creatures snarled from the centre of the horde, spittle flying from their squashed maws, long curved teeth snapping threateningly. Hackles raised, they lunged forward as a pack, leading the charge.

Trevor flicked his whips, twisting his wrists to send the long tails flying in elaborate, serpentine loops, jumping and spinning in the air to strike as the hounds closed in; the one on the left caught the full brunt of Morning Star, crashing to the ground in a ball of flame. The one on the right dodged the leathery sting of the whip nimbly, charging towards Sypha while the middle one leapt at Trevor.

“Sypha!”

“I’ve got it!”

Fire sprang from her palm as it hurled its stocky weight at her, hitting it square in the chest and punching through its back. It fell, the reek of cauterised flesh saturating the air with a burnt, greasy tang. A bipedal lizard-like creature leapt through the smoke rising from its dead, burning body, swinging a spear at Sypha.

She dodged, retreating backwards as it followed, spinning and jabbing the rough-hewn weapon in its hands. Walls of ice blocked its attack, glassy shards splitting off and flying forward; she aimed for its face, its eyes. It blocked, or dodged, lashing its tail: it spun, swinging the heavily muscled appendage around and catching her side. She flew off her feet, her ice dissipating as the magic was interrupted, and she crashed into the dirt with a choked gasp, the air rushing from her lungs.

“Sypha! Hold on!” Trevor yelled from across the lawn, cornered by three night creatures that danced and twisted around the curling paths of his whips, with more circling him to grab him. They lunged and snapped at him in turn, attempting to get close, blocking his path when he tried to side step them to get to Sypha. “Bastards!”

Sypha sucked in a deep breath, her ribs screaming at her in protest. Her head throbbed with her heartbeat, a high-pitched ringing deafening her. Sluggish, her vision skewing sideways, she rolled onto her back as a shadow fell across her. She looked up to stare at the scaly face of the lizard, its spear raised high above its head to stab her. She lifted her arm as if in slow motion, heavy and laborious, but the lizard was already swinging the spear down onto her.

She aborted the conjuring spell, diving to one side: the spear pierced her robe, sticking into the ground and jolting her onto her back on the ground again.

Grunting, it pinned her under its clawed foot as it wiggled the spear out of the dirt, raising it high again.

She fought against the crushing weight on her chest, pushing at its heavy foot with one hand, her other fervently making the elemental shapes with her fingers.

There was no time left: the lizard jabbed the spear down towards her face.

The fire barely sparking on her fingertips, she threw the sputtering flame forward in a last defiant attempt to save herself.

The snarl of a wolf echoed in the night, a streak of white flashing across her vision as it lunged at the lizard creature, knocking it from above her, followed by the wet squelch of teeth closing around flesh.

The weight disappeared from Sypha’s chest as the lizard creature shrieked in pain, and she drew in a bracing lungful of air. She threw herself upright, tracking the large white wolf that had clamped its jaws on the night creature's arm, blood spurting from the wound, its spear broken in two shards.

She scrambled to her feet, shaking her head to clear it as more monsters converged on her when they realised she wasn’t dead. She threw a quick blast of fire at them to delay them and ran towards Alucard as he released the lizard’s arm and struck for the neck, bone and cartilage collapsing under the strength of his bite. He landed on top of its body as it toppled over, springing off of it to stand beside Sypha against the approaching creatures.

The remaining fighters facing Trevor turned their attention away from him, their focus on Sypha and Alucard.

“Hey!” Trevor snarled, charging after them as they converged in a semi-circle around Alucard and Sypha. He leapt over them, using them as step holders: flipping round, he kicked one under the chin, breaking its neck and sending it crumbling to the ground as he landed beside Sypha, his whips at his side, ready to fly.

“Ready?” he asked.

“I’m ready,” Sypha replied, gritting her teeth against the throbbing in her head, lightning crackling up her arms.

Alucard just snapped his jaws, lips drawn back to reveal his sharp canine teeth, hackles raised.

The half dozen night creatures remaining stood unmoving, slack limbed and blank faced, staring at them. Waiting.

Sypha narrowed her eyes, brow furrowed in confusion. “Are they… not going to attack us?”

Trevor surveyed them with equal confusion. “Are they waiting for something?”

The last winged creature still alive dropped to the ground between the two groups, tucking its wings close to its back. It was gargoyle-esque in appearance, with a squashed, rounded face and a horned head under a half-skull mask, bright red pupil-less eyes peering at them from the eye holes, twin sets of fangs protruding from it lips beneath the line of teeth on the skull. It crouched on all four limbs, its arms more human than its digitigrade, furred legs ending in clawed feet.

“We…” it hissed, guttural and slow, as if the words were hard to form with its lips and its long canine teeth.

Sypha spooked, her eyes going wide. “They can speak?”

Even Trevor looked taken aback, in shock, and Alucard quickly stood upright, a man again, eyeing the creatures suspiciously.

“What do you want?” he demanded, addressing the gargoyle.

“We… serve… Dracula,” it hissed, drawling out the vowels and stuttering over the hard consonants, but they understood the words clear enough.

Alucard blinked, startled into silence. He quickly recovered, his expression turning cold and stony. “Dracula is dead.”

It cocked its head to the side, studying him from head to toe.

“We… s-s-serve… blood… of… Dra-cu-la.”

A wordless, sibilant hissing rose from the night creatures behind it in a chorus of agreement, all eyes focused on Alucard.

“You serve… the blood of Dracula?” Alucard echoed, his eyebrows arching high over widened eyes. “Me?”

“Blood of Dracula,” the gargoyle repeated. “We... serve.”

The three of them shared a look in startled silence.

“Well, that’s a fucking twist,” Trevor said first, straightening up from his defensive stance, no less tense as he stared at the night creatures.

“It’s… interesting,” Sypha replied, rubbing her chin in thought.

Alucard held up a hand, quieting them, his eyes never leaving the gargoyle.

“If you serve me… that means you would do as I say?” he asked.

The gargoyle nodded, the others mirroring the motion.

“ _All_ as I say?”

More nodding.

Alucard pursed his lips, tapping the back of his fingers against them as he considered the creatures before him, his eyes shifting between them and Trevor and Sypha at his side.

“What if I told you never to harm these two humans?” he asked, pointing to them, “and never allow another night creature to harm them, even at the cost of your own lives, you would do it?”

“Yes.”

“What if I told you to follow their orders, instead, as if they were my own?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Alucard, what the fuck—"

“Even the Belmont?” Alucard cut him off before Trevor could finish.

A chorus of less than happy hissing rose from the creatures, and Trevor tensed, rolling the whips in his hands as he eyed the creatures: obviously more than a few had had the round trip between hell and earth more than once to know the Belmont name, maybe personally.

The gargoyle stood silent for a long moment, holding Alucard’s stern gaze. It eventually nodded, conceding. “We… will… s-serve.”

A rumbling unhappy chorus followed, but all the night creatures nodded with varying degrees of reluctance.

“Then serve them, not me,” Alucard said, waving his hand dismissively and turning back to the castle. “I want nothing to do with you.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” Trevor said, looping his whips back into their belt hold. “You can all go kill yourselves and save me the time doing it instead.”

“Wait!” Sypha cried out, throwing her hands up as if to physically stop the order. Even Alucard stopped in his tracks with a start, looking at her in interest. “Ignore that! Do _not_ kill yourselves!”

“What?” Trevor demanded, spinning to face her. “What are you _doing_ , Sypha?”

“Trevor, just… wait,” she said. “Maybe we shouldn’t make any rash decisions right now.”

“Ra— _Rash_ _decisions_?” he spluttered, gawping at her. He swept his hand through the air, gesturing the creatures. “They are night creatures! The hordes of Hell on earth! Here to torment, torture, and terrorise all humankind! What rash decision could I possibly make about destroying them?”

“Deciding to kill a group of night creatures that have just agreed to serve you and your orders is a little rash,” she pointed out. “We should consider all the possibilities this presents.”

“Possibilities?” Trevor repeated, his voice jumping an octave. He stared incredulously between Sypha and Alucard. “Are you hearing yourself? Are you hearing her?”

Alucard blinked, disinterested. He shifted his gaze towards them, glancing between Trevor’s frustrated expectation and Sypha’s patient one. He shrugged. “I admit I am rather intrigued to hear her thoughts; I expected your reaction, but Sypha’s surprised me.”

Trevor threw his hands up, bringing them down to cover his face.

“Sypha, I love you, but you are not making sense,” he said. “We cannot keep them alive!”

“Why not?” she asked, shrugging. “If they follow our orders, we could use them.”

“No. No, we cannot use them. _I_ am not going to use them,” he hissed. “The Belmonts would never, in a thousand years, use night creatures. It’s… It’s an abomination.”

“Like they would never use black magic to protect their stronghold of magical and supernatural artefacts?”

“Shut up, Alucard.”

“Look, Trevor,” Sypha said, placating. “Think about it: they can cover a lot more ground than we can in a single night. We can send them out to protect humans rather than hurt them, and if there are more night creatures out there that specifically serve Dracula, we could gain more forces to help protect humanity.”

Trevor frowned, unconvinced.

“Trevor, how many Belmonts can claim they were able to use the forces of Hell against the forces of Hell?”

He pulled a face, considering. “I suppose… but what happens when the only night creatures left are the ones that follow our orders? What do we do about them then?”

“Confident, aren’t you, Belmont?”

Trevor and Alucard glowered at each other, before Sypha stepped between them, blocking their eyeline.

“We will cross that bridge when we get to it, but right now, it _would_ mean a lot less travelling for us,” she said pointedly, tilting her head toward Alucard.

Trevor flicked his gaze towards Alucard, but he had looked away, studying their audience of night creatures. They had remained where they stood, watching them without much interest either way. He scowled, folding in his arms.

“Fine,” he said, resigned. "I don't fucking like it, but, we'll do it your way for now."

He turned to eye the creatures before him with a hard glare, jabbing a finger at them. “But if any of you give me a single reason to, I’ll cut you down where you stand without a second thought.”

“We… serve,” the gargoyle simply said.

“Fine. Don’t touch my fucking horses, they aren’t for eating.”

“Actually, maybe avoid eating any livestock would be a good idea,” Sypha added. She approached the gargoyle, coming eye level with it even in its crouched state. “How do you feel about eating things that are not human or for human?”

“Flesh… is… flesh.”

“Okay, well then, I order you all to only eat what you catch yourselves outside of human habitation,” she said, addressing all of them. “No horses or cows or sheep or anything that lives around humans, especially not other humans. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

A wave of nods followed.

“Lovely,” she said, smiling. She surveyed the assortment of characters before her: a horse-like creature with two horns protruding from its head and spines along its back, a beak-faced creature that had the body vaguely human in shape but cloven hooved feet at the end of tree-trunk thick legs, another lizard creature like the one that nearly stabbed her, two bear-like, crocodile faced creatures, and the gargoyle.

She clapped her hands decidedly. “Okay, so; you four,” she pointed to the gargoyle, the horse, the lizard, and beak-face, “are to spread out, and seek out other night creatures. If they are harming humans, you are to stop them by any means necessary and protect the humans; if they _aren’t_ harming humans, ask them if they serve Dracula, and send them back here to pledge their loyalty to Alucard. Can you do that?”

The creatures looked between each other, conversing silently among themselves. They seemed to struggle with long streams of words conveying their orders, but they eventually nodded, clarity evident on their monstrous faces.

“We… will… find… others. Bring… them… back,” the gargoyle swore, evidently the only one who could speak and therefore the representative of the group.

“Excellent,” she said, satisfied.

“What about those two?” Trevor asked, pointing to the bear-crocodile hybrids.

“They’ll stay here, and help clean up the castle,” Sypha replied decidedly.

Alucard jerked his head around, indignant. “Excuse me? What is wrong with my castle?”

“It’s filthy and it looks like it hasn’t been lived in for years, despite you living here for the last few months,” Sypha replied easily, barely glancing over her shoulder at him. “They look strong enough to help with the heavy lifting as well as the smaller tasks around the place.”

“You want to use the servants of Hell as actual servants?” Alucard asked, deadpan.

“Not servants,” Sypha corrected. “But we do need a few extra hands to help, and if you had any strong opposition to it, you should have thought of that before you gave us direct order over them.”

“Now,” she said, effectively silencing any more argument from Trevor or Alucard. “Are you hungry? There’s a river nearby, we can catch you some fish and feed you before you all start trekking off on your assignments. Come along.”

“Sypha, are you really sure this is a good idea?” Trevor asked.

“They serve the blood of Dracula,” she replied, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “And he in turn told them to serve us; think of this as their first test, if you’re so worried. If they don’t harm me, you have one less reason not to trust them.”

“I’ll never trust them,” he grumbled, folding his arms across his chest sullenly.

Sypha just smiled at him, and closed the distance between them to kiss his cheek. “I’ll be right back, and anyway, if we treat them fairly, they have more reason to do as we say.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

“Well, it’s how I’m going to work.” She conjured a fireball in her hands to guide her way, and began trekking towards the forest path that led to the river. “Come along then, time for a midnight snack.”

Trevor watched sourly as the night creatures turned and followed her like a pack of dogs trained to heel, the gargoyle unfurling it’s large, membranous bat wings and launching into the air over the group. He couldn’t say he was happy about it, but they seemed docile in their movements, ambling after her without any indication of aggression. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose: his life had gotten increasingly stranger the last few months since he first met her in Gresit, and while he couldn’t complain about her presence in his life, the growing unfamiliarity of the world’s problems and how he dealt with them left him ungrounded, like the floor was going to fall out from under him at any given moment. “Fuck.”

Alucard said nothing, staring after the retreating night creatures’ backs as they disappeared into the darkness, following Sypha without question. They did not spare a second glance to the fallen night creatures, the dead holding no interest to them unless they could eat it; their focus lay solely on following and completing their most recent order, unquestioning in their obedience now that they had sworn it to them.

He glanced at the cindering bodies of the night creatures scattered across the lawn. His stomach churned, a cold, pulsing heat seeping through it and competing with the chronic headache pounding in his skull. He wiped his mouth with his cuff, the residue of the lizard creature’s blood sitting acrid and bitter on his tongue; he refrained from spitting in an attempt to get rid of the rancid taste in front of Trevor.

“Well, we best deal with the leftovers,” Trevor stated, suddenly at Alucard’s shoulder, following his eyeline to the dead bodies. “Otherwise we’ll have more visitors looking for a “midnight snack”.”

Alucard rubbed his chest, trying to shift the cold heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach, and turned towards the castle, walking away without a backwards glance. He ignored Trevor calling his name, his indignant grumbling and cursing as he disappeared into the castle.

His footsteps took him to the kitchen where he usually set up his meals, bypassing the larder and the pantry to the racks of wine. Grabbing the first one he could reach and a glass from the drying rack, he poured himself a large measure and sank into the chair at the head of the table, downing half the glass in one swallow. The sweetness washed away most of the lingering taste of night creature’s bitter blood, but the cold pit still lay in his stomach, his headache banging against the inside of his skull. He slumped back, resting the wineglass against his forehead, the cool glass a minor balm against the repetitive thumping. His eyes drifted to the empty shelf at the end of the room where the dolls had once sat, and he cringed, his hand tightening on his wine glass.

“Fuck,” he echoed Trevor’s earlier sentiment.

Night creatures at his door swearing fealty.

Trevor and Sypha hovering around him in the peripheries.

Taka and Sumi haunting him, invading his thoughts like vengeful ghosts.

Fuck them.

Fuck his father’s bastard creations that didn’t die off with him.

Fuck the prophecy that threw Trevor and Sypha into his life where they had no right to be.

Fuck the little harlots that threw themselves at him and tried to fuck with him.

Fuck them all.

He downed the last of the glass, irritation prickling in the aftertaste, his mood souring; he grabbed the bottle for another long pull. He just wanted to sleep and forget, and perhaps if he drank enough he would achieve both for a short while.

*

Footsteps in the hallway approached, and Alucard blinked the heaviness from his eyes: the heavy fall could only be Trevor, coupled with the softer patter of Sypha’s footfall, and they stepped into the kitchen. Sypha carried a line of fish in one hand, while Trevor carried a disgruntled look on his face, wiping his hands on his pants.

“That’s the night creatures cleared away; you’re welcome,” he said, clomping around the table and sitting heavily in the next chair down from Alucard’s left with a tired sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. Alucard blinked again, straightening in his seat.

He winced at the stiffness in his neck, the muscles in his back and shoulders straining uncomfortably when he moved, rolling them to ease the tension in them. His head still pounded the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, but this didn’t hold the same weight as the headaches that plagued him hand in hand with insomnia; this headache came with the taste of sour grapes in his mouth, the revenge of the wine that he had consumed.

His eyes dropped to the glass held precariously loose between his fingers, then to the empty bottle, splashes of wine on the table top. He didn’t recall finishing the whole bottle, nor drifting into the half-sleep he regularly found himself in these days. He rubbed his bleary, dry eyes, setting the glass on the table while Trevor picked up the bottle and turned it in his hands; Sypha pottered about behind him, cutlery and utensils clattering, but he couldn’t muster the strength or the energy to follow her movements.

“Where are your night creatures?” he asked, grimacing at the sound of his voice. He cleared his throat, his tongue cotton dry and unbearably fuzzy when he ran it over his teeth.

“Your night creatures, you mean,” Trevor corrected, setting the bottle down.

His sour mood returned as he levelled a cool stare at Trevor, his stomach tightening again with the same churning he felt earlier when they had first arrived. He folded his arms, his hands tucked safely at his sides. “If you wanted me to replace my father, you should have just left the corpses at the door.”

Trevor returned his stare, taken aback, before he recovered with a tight smile. “ _I_ said to get rid of them; trust me, I don’t want Dracula walking around upside in any way, shape or form. Sypha decided to keep them as pets.”

“Not pets,” she corrected, storing the gutted fish in the cooler back-shelves of the larder and wiping her hands on a towel. “Not servants either, but if there’s a way to gather night creatures to pledge loyalty to you, and you extend that trust to us, then we can potentially have an army to fight an army.”

“Are you expecting an invasion?” Alucard asked, cocking his head as she sat down opposite Trevor on his other side.

“Dracula had a Court,” Sypha reminded them. “We can’t guarantee they were all present when we attacked, and we don’t know how many allies or supporters he had further afield.”

“My father didn’t have allies,” Alucard corrected, shaking his head. “He had tools and he had weapons and he had pawns that he could manipulate from while they vied for his power or his knowledge, but he never trusted anyone to have as an ally. Anyone who believed they had his confidence was a fool.”

“Plenty of them in the world,” Trevor mused grimly, resting his chin in his hand. A look passed between Sypha and Trevor across the table, and something in the air shifted. Alucard narrowed his eyes, his gaze darting between them.

“What is it?”

Sypha flinched, wringing her hands. She opened her mouth to speak, before she closed it again, her lips thinning into a pale line. A haunted look descended across her face, an eerie reflection to how he had felt over the last few months. He shifted in his seat, pushing down the sick sensation threatening to claw up his throat.

“What is it?” he repeated.

“Ah, some weeks ago,” Trevor began quietly, his eyes on the table top. “Before we got news of... what you had been up to, we ended up aiding a town that had noticed some disturbing things going on in the local priory, with the monks.”

“Alright,” Alucard prompted, when Trevor fell silent.

Trevor scowled at the table top, scratching his cheek restlessly. “They had a night creature — largest bastard I’ve ever seen — and they… they used it to open an Infinity Corridor that was under the priory.”

Alucard shook his head in disbelief. Infinity Corridors were rarer than rare, holding mysteries beyond most written knowledge. “What has this got to do with my father?”

“They opened a portal to Hell,” Sypha said quietly. She scratched at her hands. “They tried to resurrect Dracula from it.”

The words were quiet, but they hung heavy in the air over the table, around the three of them. Alucard slowly closed his eyes, his head falling back against the back of the chair. “Of course.”

“It didn’t work,” she completed, although he had already guessed that. “But, I think we need to be… prepared, for any future possibilities that might arise.”

“You mean like more crazy monks trying to resurrect my father from Hell?” Saying it didn’t land any softer than hearing it. He cracked open his eyes, looking at her through his lashes.

“Yes.”

“Why keep the night creatures alive, then? They are my father’s servants.”

“I’m hedging my bets that because you… defeated Dracula, they’ll recognise you as the stronger master, even if he did somehow come back.”

A good argument. Risky, since there was no proof that the night creatures wouldn’t renegade back to Dracula’s army should he return. Risky to even attempt to resurrect him; Infinity Corridors had immense power, but were still largely in the realm of the unknown. Pulling Dracula out of Hell could very well turn out worse for him than for anyone else; then again, luck was rarely on their side to allow that to happen.

“Well, we can raise a glass that Dracula is still trapped safely in hell,” he said sardonically. “There’s still plenty of wine left.”

“I personally think I should cut you off,” Trevor said. "You're obviously a lightweight."

“I’m sorry, Alucard,” Sypha said. She shot a look at Trevor, and obviously kicked him under the table if the dull thump and Trevor’s wince was anything to go by.

Alucard shrugged, keeping the small smile of satisfaction off his face at the sight of Trevor’s childish pout as he rubbed his shin. “I honestly didn’t expect any less for him when it came to the end.”

He sat up in his chair, pushing it away from the table. “But no, I don’t think I want another bottle. What I want is to lie down.”

“Lightweight.”

“Says the professional alcoholic.”

“Would you like us to walk you to your bedroom?” Sypha asked, derailing their jibes at each other. He quickly shook his head, pushing himself up from the table and quickly grabbing the edge when the room tipped dangerously to one side. His stomach twisted rebelliously, his headache returning with a vengeance and the sudden reminder that he could not recall the last meal he had eaten.

Tomorrow.

That was a problem for tomorrow.

Opening his eyes, he jerked back; Sypha and Trevor were on their feet, close by but not crowding him, twin looks of concern on their faces.

“Are you sure we can’t help?”

He opened his mouth to refuse them again, but hesitated, closing his mouth with a click. He must have looked truly terrible if even Trevor didn’t have another clever quip to throw at him, both of them looking at him with such worrying eyes. He’d been fooled by eyes like that before; they were lying eyes. He should refuse them, instead of making the same mistake, but the length of hallway that stretched between him and the closest surface to lie down on stretched on in his mind. The thought of forcing his feet to trudge the distance immediately exhausted him; his body was too weak, and his will was evidently weaker.

“Very well,” he conceded quietly. “Let me hold on to your shoulders, but do not touch me.”

“Sounds like a fair trade, come on,” Trevor said. Careful with the sleeve hems around his wrists and ignoring the crawling itch in his palms that made him want to jerk them away and scrub at them, Alucard gripped their shoulders to maintain his balance and directed them out the kitchen, down the long, dark hallway. Shuffling past the two night creatures that were removing the heaviest debris, they didn’t acknowledge the three passers-by, too engrossed in the task Sypha had set for them. He turned his gaze away before the uncomfortable churning in his stomach overwhelmed him at the sight of them, just one more remnant from his father's reign of horror he had inherited in the end.

“Up on the left,” he directed, and they stepped into a large, unlit lounge. Alucard immediately released his hold on their shoulders and sank into a long chaise longue, kicking his feet up onto the plush cushion and laying his head against the arm rest, throwing one arm over his eyes, the other curling around his chest.

“Don’t you want to go to bed?” Sypha asked, rubbing her arms. “It’s cold in here.”

“The bedrooms are too far away,” he lied easily. “This will suffice.”

“Well, best warm this place up, then,” Trevor replied, wandering over to the fireplace and retrieving some wood from the block next to it. “You know for all the effort you put into the Hold, you could have focused some of it on the place you were actually living.”

Alucard shifted his arm from his eyes, twisting his head back to watch Trevor. “My father had kept the castle in well enough condition, despite his increasing melancholy. You needn’t tend the fire… unless you wish to sleep here.”

He hadn’t meant to say it aloud; he expected them to return to the wagon and should have told them as such, and yet the words slipped out without him meaning to. How easy he forgot to keep them at a distance, how easy he let them back close to him. “I mean—"

“I’d prefer a bed, but hey, I’ll take a random piece of furniture over the wagon floor,” Trevor said, trying to light the fire with a flint and failing.

“Let me, Trevor,” Sypha said after his third attempt, snapping her fingers and conjuring a small flame. The fire roared to life, casting the room in a warm orange glow that bounced off the walls and cast dancing shadows behind the cluttered furnishings.

“Thank you, dear.” Trevor pushed himself to his feet and kissed her cheek, his hands resting familiarly on her waist.

Alucard turned his gaze away, covering his eyes again so he didn’t have to see the softness that passed between them, ignoring the way his heart stuttered in his chest at the small glimpse he had of what they had together. He jolted when something heavy fell across him, and he looked down to see Trevor’s cloak draped over him and half the back of the longue: he hadn’t even noticed him move. Raising his eyes questioningly, Trevor just smiled at him and offered a small salute.

“You stay comfortable, your lordship, I’ll be right back with some proper blankets,” he said, as he wandered out the room, calling over his shoulder before he disappeared around the door jamb. “Keep a space warm for me, Sypha.”

“Usually he complains about my cold feet,” Sypha mused from the thick rug by the fire, her head pillowed on a stolen cushion from a nearby chair. She rolled over to face him, curling up on her side; he could feel her big blue eyes boring into the side of his head, watching him. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” he said evasively.

“You don’t sleep a lot?”

He shrugged, shifting under the weight of the cloak to get comfortable. He tried not to breathe in the scent of it too deeply, rearranging it so it fell just up to his chest and no further. “I didn’t sleep much after you two woke me up.”

“Are you having trouble sleeping?” she asked, as if reading his mind and knowing that he was avoiding what she really meant. He chose to stay silent, which was an answer in itself.

“You’ve been through a lot,” she continued. “Hearing about your father can’t be easy on top of everything else.”

“It’s not a surprise,” he repeated. He threw one arm across his forehead, staring up at the ceiling. “As for everything else… I do not want to speak of it. It is done.”

“Hmm.”

Alucard turned his head, meeting her gaze. Her eyes seemed to glow in the shadows cast by the crackling flames in the hearth.

“You don’t need to speak about it, but, we are here for you, if you need us,” she said. He said nothing in return, and she yawned, rubbing her eyes wearily.

“Get some sleep, Sypha,” Alucard replied, turning his gaze to the ceiling again. He listened to her rustling before she got comfortable, and, glancing over to make sure her eyes were closed, hesitantly pulled Trevor’s cloak up and tucked himself underneath it.

He never seemed to learn from his mistakes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N My thought process: 
> 
> 1\. Night creatures are ultimately loyal to the one who forged them, as canonically revealed by Hector's story line in Season 3. From memory, Isaac's creatures all seem to have red eyes, Hector's creature's all have blue.  
> 2\. Isaac was unconditionally loyal to Dracula, so, theoretically, would he create his creatures to also be unconditionally loyal to Dracula above everything and everyone else, even himself?  
> 3\. In the absence of Dracula, would that loyalty extend to the closest thing they recognise as "Dracula" = Alucard?  
> 4\. The trio is going to have to deal with Camille's army, Isaac's army, or both at some point in the future. They need an army of their own, so I'm giving them one.


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The road to the OT3 begins. An easy domestic morning scene.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still working out the order of events that I want to happen and how to bridge the gaps between them, so please be patient with updates, and remember progress is never linear.
> 
> Again, in this chapter, there are elements of Alucard's self-blame in his thought process about what happened to him. Reminder that this does not reflect the author's opinions on assault or its victims, it is simply a symptom that manifested from Alucard's PTSD.
> 
> I hope you enjoy the chapter xXx

Alucard slept in fits and starts, unable to drift away with the knowledge that there were two other bodies sharing the room with him. He could hear their soft breathing every time he jolted awake, cold sweat beading on his brow and fisting his trembling hands in the heavy cloak blanketing him. It smelled of Trevor; familiar enough to him that it didn’t stop him falling back into the rough version of sleep he had become accustomed to, but unusual enough to startle him every time he woke back up and had to re-orientate himself to his surroundings. By the time the pale, dim yellow light of dawn crept through the gap in the curtains, he was more exhausted than rested; the remnants of nightmares and memories hung low over his head like the heavy morning mist rolling across the grounds, and his limbs moved stiffly as he forced himself upright on the seat. Rubbing the back of his neck to release the knots in the muscle, he let the cloak fall off him and his eyes sought out its owner.

The fire had died to the embers throughout the night, leaving the ashes glowing deep orange that barely lent aid to the dim lighting in the room. The heap of blankets by the hearth remained undisturbed, piled with stolen cushions from the assortment of furniture in the room; despite Trevor’s comments last night about sleeping on the floor, they had opted for it anyway. He shook his head, pushing the cloak away from him and pushed himself up from the couch.

“You seem to have your days and nights backwards.”

Alucard paused, looking over as the mountain of blankets shifted and Trevor popped out from the pile, his hair ruffled from sleep and shirtless. He yawned, scrubbing his hand through his hair, and shuffled his way out from the mountain of blankets wrapped around him.

“You are up far too early for any self-respecting vampire, you know that?”

“Not a self-respecting dhampir, thought.” He glanced down at Trevor’s exposed chest and arms as he picked up his shirt from the floor and dusted it off; he averted his eyes by the time Trevor had straightened and pulled his shirt back on. “What about you? I thought you’d take the time to sleep the hours away now that you have my father’s servants to do your work for you?”

Trevor scoffed, stifling a yawn behind his hand. “I’ll believe they actually did what Sypha asked them to when I see it.”

Alucard cocked his head to the side, frowning at Trevor. “Did you not sleep well last night?”

“About as well as you did,” Trevor said, levelling his gaze at Alucard. “Sypha and I could hear you tossing and turning with nightmares last night.”

Alucard looked away, folding his arms guardedly across his chest, spots of colour erupting high on his cheeks. “You needn’t have stayed here; you had the option of the bedrooms, or the wagon.”

Trevor shook his head. “Well, we weren’t about to leave you alone again.”

“There’s no one here for me to slaughter while I’m out of your sight,” Alucard replied stonily. “You didn’t have to stand guard over me.”

“Not standing guard,” Trevor corrected. He reached around Alucard to grab his cloak, pausing when he visibly flinched. Straightening up, he stared at Alucard: Alucard wouldn’t meet his eyes. “You’re shit at sleeping through the night.”

Alucard laughed, thrown off by Trevor’s bluntness; he should’ve expected it, he had known the man for long enough.

Well, that wasn’t really true: the number of days they had actually spent together numbered less than the fingers on both his hands before they defeated Dracula and parted ways. Which made his behaviour the last few months all the more embarrassing; his father’s madness was understandable when he had loved his mother for over two decades before she had been taken from him, he had chosen to end his father’s life with the help of two strangers, who had their own lives to go back to when everything was over and done, and it had broken him.

Embarrassing?

Humiliating.

He blinked, drawing back and frowning at Trevor’s hand waving obnoxiously in front of his face.

“You disappeared into your head,” Trevor said simply, dropping his hand to his side.

“Hn,” Alucard huffed, smoothing out his expression into one of hopefully bored indifference; he was struggling to keep his emotions in check more and more recently since Trevor and Sypha’s return. He grabbed Trevor’s cloak and thrust it towards him. “Your cloak smells like you haven’t washed it in weeks, it stinks.”

“You needn’t have kept it,” Trevor replied with a smirk, throwing Alucard’s words back at him. “You had the option of the blankets instead.”

Alucard sneered at him without any malice; Trevor shrugged it off with a swish of his cloak around his shoulders, and jerked his thumb to the door.

“Come on, I’m starving,” he said, side stepping Alucard. “You have food in your pantry, right?”

“Obviously not for much longer,” Alucard replied drily, catching up with Trevor in two easy strides.

“Fuck you, Alucard.”

“Fuck yourself, Belmont.”

They glanced at each other out the corner of their eyes, their mouths tilting up good naturedly as a familiar camaraderie settled between them. They made their way out into the main hallway down to the kitchen, and as it lightened with the rising sunrays slipping through the windows high on the walls, they saw the result of keeping the night creatures around on Sypha’s orders.

“Well, shit,” Trevor mused. “Looks like Sypha was onto something.”

Alucard hummed noncommittally, looking around: the stonework still had chunks knocked out of it, and scorch marks slashed the walls, but the ripped banners had been taken down, and most of the debris had been cleared away, piled in a heap of rubble near the front door to be moved out the following night. The cobwebs and dust had been brushed away, the long carpet looking less worse for wear than it had been the last few weeks; the bloodstains were still visible, but an admirable attempt had been made on them. “I suppose it is less of an eyesore.”

“Just a bit,” Trevor agreed. “I wouldn’t say they did a good job, but they’re obviously useful for something. They’re not still hanging around behind the pillars or something, are they?”

“They will likely be asleep, they only wake at night unless commanded or the castle comes under attack,” Alucard explained. “I imagine they will have found somewhere in the dungeons to rest, or the old forging chambers.”

“Forging chambers?”

“My father must have had at least one Forger, to gather such a large army in the space of a year,” Alucard explained, shrugging. “I would suspect he had more than one, to build up the numbers faster.”

He stopped, looking over his shoulder when he noticed Trevor had slowed to a halt. He cocked his head. “You look concerned.”

“We fought Dracula’s Court,” Trevor reminded him, a frown pinching his face. “I don’t remember seeing anyone who could be one of these “Forgers” you’re talking about.”

“They likely ran when the castle was pulled here,” Alucard replied. “Or they escaped in the chaos.”

“That still means they could be out there somewhere.”

Alucard shrugged again. “That is a possibility.”

“You’re really not worried that there could be at least one Forger out there creating more night creatures?” Trevor asked, falling into step with Alucard again.

Alucard shook his head. “They died, or they escaped; if the former, we needn’t worry about it. If the latter, Forgers need a high number of fresh dead bodies, a conduit, and plenty of their own fuel reserves to create their own army of night creatures. They’d have to work day and night to garner the numbers my Father commanded, and that still relies how many dead bodies they have at their disposal.”

“So, what, you’re saying we don’t have to worry about that option either?”

“I’m saying we don’t need to worry about it _right now_ ,” Alucard corrected. They wandered into the kitchen, pausing at the doorway as Alucard turned to face Trevor. “Forging takes time, energy, and an abundance of resources that most people don’t have on hand; if someone wants to build an army of night creatures, it’s going to be a while before they become a problem.”

“Yes, but then they pose a significant problem.”

“What’s the alternative? Go off and scour the globe East to West on the chance that your fears are real?”

“It’s not a fear,” Trevor grumbled. “Just a healthy awareness of a highly concerning issue.”

“I thought your biggest concern was filling your gut with my food,” Alucard drawled.

“For that comment, I’m going to drink all your wine, too.”

Alucard rolled his eyes, and began to grab pans and utensils to begin cooking breakfast. “Are you going to help make it, if you are going to eat me out of house and home?”

“Of course,” Trevor said easily, throwing his cloak over the dining table chair and rolling up his sleeves. “Sypha left that fish in the pantry last night; do you have any objections?”

Alucard blinked in surprise, glancing at Trevor’s exposed forearms, before he shook his head. He had cooked for Taka and Sumi; they had been kept out of the kitchen, being his guests and so hadn’t been expected to cook for themselves. They had accepted without question, and the same curtesy extended to Trevor and Sypha; he was well versed in etiquette, he wasn’t an animal. “It’s the one thing I’ve been consistently eating, I have quite a few recipes of my own creation. I can cook it in no time at all.”

He missed the look Trevor threw at him, before Trevor ignored his hint to leave it to Alucard, and started gathering a selection of vegetables and herbs hanging from the racks over their heads. “Sounds good. Can’t be any worse than some of the things we’ve eaten on the road. Here, shove over.”

Alucard nipped sideways as Trevor muscled into the space he had been occupying, and began filleting the first fish. Alucard hummed, watching him deftly work with the small knife in his scarred hands, before he focused and began to dice vegetables a comfortable distance away from Trevor. “Well, I’m not surprised you would take a fancy to roadkill, Belmont.”

“Oh my God, fuck you.”

Alucard chuckled, and they both settled into a routine around each other as they prepared breakfast for the three of them. They lapsed into a comfortable silence, broken by the occasional request for a utensil or ingredient to be passed between them; Alucard felt himself relax when he realised that Trevor was working around him in a way that kept him at a distance and in Alucard’s eyeline, so he didn’t jump or skitter every time he moved. It niggled Alucard’s pride, but relief overwhelmed it when his muscles eased from the locked tension he had held them in for so long, his headache retreating to the back of his mind, not gone, but more manageable than it had been in weeks.

Soon the kitchen smelled pleasantly of herby fish and warmed bread, Trevor showing Alucard a trick of moistening stale bread and baking it again to revive the last of the loaf they’d bought on the road. In the end, they plated thinly sliced fish atop chunks of bread with tomatoes and diced onions and mushrooms, just as Sypha wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes with the hem of her sleeve.

“Good morning,” she said, sniffing the air. “Hmm, what’s for breakfast.”

“Fish,” Trevor offered, laying the table for the three of them.

“With bread and vegetables,” Alucard added. He gathered a pitcher of water and glasses, gesturing to Sypha to take a seat. “Thank you for preparing the fish last night to be used.”

“It’s no problem, Alucard,” Sypha replied. She clasped her hand over Trevor’s when he squeezed her shoulder on his way around the table, leaning over to kiss him briefly before settling into her chair. “I noticed the night creatures had cleared away a lot of the damage from the hallway.”

“Yes, they were quite efficient in the time they had before sunrise,” Alucard agreed, sitting at his preferred place at the head of the table.

“They won’t be able to get into the Hold, will they?”

Alucard shook his head, pouring Sypha’s glass for her before offering the same to Trevor. “The wards have been reset, unless either of you wish to give them permission to enter it.”

“Not a hope in Hell.”

“I think Trevor has the right idea,” Sypha agreed. “Best just keep entry limited to the three of us.”

Alucard nodded. “Understandable.”

“So, Alucard,” Trevor said around a mouthful. “Is fish the only thing you’ve been eating since we last saw you?”

“Wait, what?”

Alucard cleared his throat, sipping at his water. “The stream is the easiest resource to utilise; my mother had greenhouses up in the higher levels that my father kept maintained after her death, that is where these came from.”

He pointed to the hanging vegetables and clusters of fragrant herbs overhead. “My father also kept pigs in the lower levels for his Court to feed on, but they, ah, didn’t survive the jump.”

“Ew.” Sypha and Trevor grimaced.

“Please tell me they’re not still down there.”

Alucard shook his head. “No, I removed them quickly so they wouldn’t attract predators.”

“Okay, but there’s plenty of game and fowl around these woods,” Trevor said. “You could’ve hunted for something other than fish.”

Alucard shrugged, looking at his plate. “I didn’t have a particularly strong urge to hunt; fishing sufficed for my needs.”

Trevor and Sypha shared a look between them; Alucard twitched irritably, irked by their looks and their silent worry over every little thing he had done while they were gone, when they hadn’t concerned themselves any other time. He pressed his hand against his head, massaging his temples as pain began to pulse through his brain with renewed intensity, and sighed in frustration. In truth, feeding himself on fish, vegetables, and wine didn’t give him the nutrition he needed; understandable that they worried about his physical and mental state, a hungry dhampir was unpredictable.

“Alucard?”

Alucard blinked, straightening up and looking at Sypha: she stretched her hand out towards him, not touching him, just resting on the table near his plate.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” He lowered his hand from his head, picking up his fork.

“Is your head troubling you? Do you need a drink of water?” she persisted.

“I’ll be fine,” he repeated, taking a sip from his glass. “Please, do not concern yourself; enjoy your meal.”

“Of course, it tastes delicious. I am surprised you two didn’t end up stabbing each other,” she teased, steering the conversation away from their hovering worry, gesturing with her fork between them.

“Hey, we can work together,” Trevor complained. “Even when sharp objects are involved.”

Alucard’s mouth quirked up at one corner in a half smile. “Or you speaking.”

“Dear Lord in Heaven, bless this water,” Trevor drawled, drawing a cross over his glass, before dipping his fingers in and flicking the droplets at Alucard.

Alucard guarded his face from the harmless splatter with a raised arm, chuckling along with them before settling back to his food again while Trevor and Sypha chatted across the table with each other. He continued to half-listen to them as he ate, a small smile on his face at the pleasant atmosphere it created to have them in the kitchen with him. It was nice to have company again, he didn’t want to ruin it with his petulance, like he had done the last time: saying the wrong thing had gotten him the scars criss-crossing his body and a bloodbath in his bed, he didn’t want to repeat his mistakes by being irritable towards his guests or cause fear over his eating habits.

Perhaps they were right, without saying anything: if he gathered some hares or rabbits, he would be able to gain some value from their blood. He could also provide Trevor and Sypha with a more substantial meal, perhaps a stew or broth; something hearty and filling to repay them for helping in the meal they were sharing now.

“Alucard?”

“Hm?” He came out of his thoughts, turning to Sypha.

“I was wondering if I could see these greenhouses your mother created? I’ve never seen one indoors,” she said.

“Of course,” he agreed, wiping his mouth on a napkin. “I shall take you after breakfast. Is there anything else you wish to do today?”

“I want to take inventory of your supplies,” Sypha added. “With autumn coming closer, you’ll need to start stocking up for the colder months.”

Alucard smiled. “Sypha, I do not have the same concerns as ordinary humans do over the winter; I will be fine if I don’t have certain things stored away in the pantry or larder.”

“You might as well let her do as she pleases,” Trevor warned him, stretching out in his chair. “She does like to make lists.”

“Now that I think about it,” he added. “You could probably do with a goat and some chickens; provide you with milk and eggs if you want to expand your recipes.”

Alucard frowned. “That would mean going into town, which is a half-day round trip; I told you I didn’t want to leave the grounds unguarded.”

“You wouldn’t,” Sypha replied. “Now that we’re here, the least we can do is run some errands that you weren’t able to do while we were away.”

“And if more night creatures show up bending the knee to you, we might actually be able to rebuild some parts of the castle that got the most damage during the fight,” Trevor added, cocking his head thoughtfully.

“Careful, Belmont, you almost sound like you’re wanting more to show up,” Alucard said with a smile.

Trevor shrugged, smiling wryly. “If they’re here, that means we don’t need to be chasing them all over the country with someone’s guts hanging from their jaws.”

“Trevor, that’s disgusting, we’re eating.”

“I haven’t even regaled Alucard of the tale of those bastard flying goat demons,” he replied, making Sypha burst out laughing. “Maybe I’ll try to find him one of them.”

“I… what?” Alucard asked, perturbed. He looked between them. “What happened with flying goat demons?”

“No! No, not while we’re eating!” Sypha said between giggles, her utensils clattering to her plate as she covered her face and shook her head vigorously. “It is disgusting!”

“Honestly, Alucard, it was madness,” Trevor laughed. He leaned forward, spreading his hands in front of him, as if to set the scene. “Imagine a rain of fire falling all around you, but it’s composed of goat shit.”

“Sounds like standard hellfire,” Alucard conceded with a smile, folding his arms on the table and leaning forward. He listened raptly as Trevor began to recount one of their many adventures, breakfast half-forgotten to be picked at and nibbled on as they simply sat and chatted in each other’s company, the sun spilling warm morning light through the window and across his back and through his cool skin, joining the warmth that began to cautiously flicker in a small corner of his chest.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I gave you a high, now have a low.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, this was rather depressing to write so it took a little longer, on top of trying to navigate real life stuff in general. Thank you for your continued support and interest in the story in the in-between times, I really appreciate it.
> 
> Chapter CW: vomiting, flashbacks, disassociation, suicide mention, misunderstandings.
> 
> I would say enjoy, but it kinda sucks for all three each way, so grab a hot drink and a warm blanket and stay snuggly while reading this. Okay? XxX

“Then we got stalked by a Leszy—”

“Mm, no, the Ala came after the Leszy, remember?” Sypha corrected, wagging her fork at Trevor as she recounted their journey. “We were on our way to Rasnov to stop those three Ala wrecking everything with their storms.”

“You fought Ala demons?”

“Yep,” Trevor confirmed, leaning back on his chair. He rocked it on its back legs, his foot braced on the floor, his other knee tucked up against the edge of the table. “Devil women, the lot of them. I ended up nearly getting smothered under one’s—”

“They did put up a good fight,” Sypha cut in before Trevor could finish, making the two men laugh.

“Quite a handful, to say the least,” Trevor added, grinning wide when Sypha tutted and rolled her eyes at his obvious innuendo. Alucard chuckled again, hiding it behind the long curtain of his hair.

“I’m surprised you even came across a Leszy,” he said, his attention turning back to Trevor. “They are temperamental but keep to themselves, unless you goaded it in some way.”

“We didn’t; Trevor was being paranoid,” Sypha said with a smile. Trevor huffed, brushing it off with a shake of his head.

“Hey, I have survived near four decades on paranoia, suspicion, and distrust.” Trevor jabbed a finger at the two of them for emphasis. “I’m not going to change a habit of a lifetime.”

“I suppose, in that case, there is really no chance of saving my wine cellar.”

Trevor flipped Alucard off with a roll of his eyes.

Alucard huffed a laugh, leaning back in his chair. They’d sat around the table for a while now, the kitchen warm and bright with the high morning sun. Only crumbs remained on their plates, and finger marks on the condensation of their empty glasses. Their conversation had tapered to an end, and despite his permanent headache — unshifting despite the meal he’d consumed — there were still his daily tasks to attend.

“Thank you both for joining me for breakfast,” he said, sliding his chair back. “It was a refreshing change of pace, but I have duties to carry out today.”

“Of course, Alucard,” Sypha agreed. “You don’t have to do it alone though, we’d be more than happy to help.”

Trevor shrugged, setting his chair back on four legs. “Well, I don’t know; I had a full day planned of drinking, eating, and generally lazing around.”

“Oh well, I would hate to interrupt such an important and time-consuming schedule you have, Belmont,” Alucard drawled, smiling.

“Oh, hush, Trevor,” Sypha said. “We all know you’d be bored to death within the hour without anything to do.”

Sypha gathered her plate and cutlery, reaching for Alucard’s as well.

“Well, alright, I’m sure I can find time to do chores,” Trevor agreed. He pushed away from the table and began collecting his dishes.

They both stood at the same time, towering over him on either side.

Alucard froze, his muscles locking up as his breath caught in his chest.

He threw his chair back, looking up at them helplessly as Taka and Sumi turned towards him, blood pouring from their slit throats. “No… No, you’re dead…”

“Alucard?” Sumi asked, cocking her head to one side. Her eyes rolled back into her head till there was only a blank white stare on him. “What’s wrong?”

He jerked away from her, her hand clenched around a long, gleaming dagger. He twisted, trying to escape the scorching wire trap, fire licking long, deep lines into his flesh, and fell, crashing onto the

~~soft~~

solid

~~bedsheets~~

cold

~~mattress~~

stone floor. His head cracked against the

~~headboard~~

_cupboard_ , and he pressed himself up against it, unable to escape from their deceiving touches and their vicious words. He had to escape. He had to stop them. He needed to explain, to reason with them. If he could explain they would understand, they would stop this madness. “I didn’t lie to you…”

Taka stared at him in wary confusion, reaching for Sumi across the ~~bed~~ — table — _~~bed~~_? “Alucard, what the fuck are you — Sypha, fuck, I don’t think—”

Alucard cut Taka off with a hiss, instincts rising up over rational thought. Blackness seeped into his eyes as he jerked forward, reaching for his powers.

No!

Not again!

They don’t _understand_. If he could make them understand he won’t have to… not again…

He tamped down on the overwhelming instinctual call for his sword. His head split with pain as his mind warred in itself to control his impulses to defend, to attack. His limbs shrieked in agony, the silver gouging deeper into his skin. He snarled, and swung his claws forward, free from the restraints. “Get away!”

They leapt back, the knives falling from their hands.

A crash rang out, the knives shattering into pieces on the floor. Had they expected such flimsy blades to cut him? They wouldn’t even be able to scratch him if they broke as easy as glass, and he would be able to break free before they went any further.

Sumi moved her hands in a rapid succession of shapes in the air. Another trap they had planned for him?

Alucard hit a wall of ice, cold and unyielding against his fingertips. Wispy trails of white mist of frost rolled off it, tickling his face and neck. It cooled the sheen of sweat beading on his brow and seeped down into his lungs as he panted for air. The cold shot up his hand and wrist, up his arm into his chest, startling him with the sudden temperature drop.

What?

He never kept his room this cold.

He blinked. His eyes focused first on his dishevelled, warped reflection in the glassy surface, a stranger looking back at him. Then he saw the wall of ice in its entirety, stretching up towards the ceiling. Gasping for breath, dancing puffs of cloud billowing around his face with each exhale, he looked down at his outstretched arm, his sharp claws embedded in the ice—where were the Binding Rings?

Had Taka and Sumi removed them?

No, he needed to slice through them himself — but… he already had, after he, after…

Shadows shifted beyond the wall of ice, apparitions ghosting across the glassy surface.

“Taka?” he whispered. “Sumi?”

Where had the ice come from?

Where was he?

He pulled his arm back, searching around for answers. He came to recognise his kitchen where he ate all his meals: the deep brown wood of the cupboards, and the shining copper of the pots and pans. He smelled root vegetables—he kept them hanging over the sideboard for easy reach when preparing his food—and warm baked bread.

The hot sun against his back conflicted with the cold from the ice and he shivered, violent tremors running through his limbs. The ice wall in front of him dissolved to the floor, and disappeared into thin air without leaving a trace. It revealed the two figures beyond it, and he stared up groggily, as if he’d woken up from a long sleep, at Trevor and Sypha. They stared at him with twin expressions of alarm, their chairs toppled to the floor, their plates and glasses smashed and scattered across the stone.

Of course, breakfast.

They were clearing away breakfast and he’d… he had…

Oh, fuck his life.

He gasped, curling his arms around his chest and folding over himself, his forehead pressed against his bent knees.

“Alucard?” Sypha — _not_ Sumi — repeated, closer to him. “Are you back with us?”

His voice failed him, unable to form words around the acidic burning in his throat. He swallowed, flinching when his stomach turned, jumping against his diaphragm.

“Alucard? Come on, say something,” Trevor encouraged.

Alucard twisted as waves of cramps rolling through his abdomen. Cold, clammy sweat bloomed anew on his skin. Falling onto his hands and knees, he heaved. His hair stuck to his cheeks and his neck as it fell in a curtain around his face. Spasms rocked his body, his shoulders hunched back even as his head fell forward. The floor swayed under him, stretching and shifting under him as his vision went blurry at the edges.

The pain built, coiling around his chest as he fought to breathe and gag at the same time, panting for breath. Then the pressure released, like a bottle cork popping off, and hot, acidic liquid burned up his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, his muscles unclenching as he threw up what little he had eaten that morning. Luckily, a large copper pot appeared beneath him before he added cleaning the floors to his list of tasks to complete.

Unable to take a breath to recover, let alone thank whoever put the pot in his projectile path, a second wave hit. All he could do was lock his arms to keep himself upright, his clammy fingers scratching and slipping against the stone. He choked, and sucked in a breath that was more a whine, his teeth chattering as he tried to steady his breathing. He didn’t dare move, unsure if the worst was over or if there was more to come.

He wheezed through his clenched teeth, the smell of his own vomit burning his nose and turning his stomach again, making his eyes water anew. Blinking against his tears, they escaped down his cheeks, caught in the messy strands of hair plastered to his cheeks. He choked on a sob, trapped and powerless to his body’s rebellion.

Then his hair shifted, fingers carding through his long locks. They parted like a curtain, pulled away from his face and secured with a ribbon at his back. He shook his head, cringing as it now exposed his sweaty face, dripping tears and snot and spit. He wished the floor to open and pull him down to hell; that would be a saving grace in this spectacle of humiliation.

Unfortunately, he was not that lucky. The only reprieve was his stomach settling now that it had nothing left in it, and the chance to catch his breath.

He turned away from the disgusting contents of the pot, propping himself against the cupboards and tried to breathe. The residual acidic taste of bile in his mouth forced him to turn and spit, coughing with the burning in his throat. Opening his watering eyes was unbearable, but when he did, he saw a blurry square of linen held up in front of him, offered by Trevor.

“I didn’t think my cooking was that bad,” Trevor drawled, breaking the silence. He sat back on his heels, folding his arms over his knees, watching Alucard as he took the cloth and wiped his face with it. “So, what set you off?”

“… What?” Alucard coughed, closing his eyes again and letting his head fall forward onto his chest. He crumpled the cloth in his hand, resting his forehead against the back of his fingers. His headache had returned with a vengeance, pulsing between his ears. It added another layer to the nausea still rolling through his stomach. He draped his arm over his stomach, kneading it with his palm in a half-attempt to soothe it.

“Something made you think we weren’t us. You said names: Taka and Sumi. Are they—”

“Don’t.” He squeezed his eyes tighter, turning his face away. “I do not want to talk about this.”

“You don’t have to, Alucard,” Sypha said. She hooked her finger around a loose string of his hair and flicked it over his shoulder. She caught herself, her eyes going wide in realisation, and she withdrew her hand back to her lap, lacing her fingers together. To his surprise, her actions didn’t repulse him as much as the thought of having his body touched. Instead, he desired the light sweeping sensation of fingers carding through his hair, reminiscent of his childhood when his parents would stroke his hair. The sudden want for something he had not had in so long left him burning in horrified embarrassment.

“Alucard, you don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to, but could you please tell us what we did to scare you?” Sypha asked.

“You didn’t scare me,” he denied, near petulant in his ears. He wrinkled his nose when even Trevor made a noise of disagreement at the back of his throat.

He scoffed, knuckling his forehead. He considered how to salvage the last shreds of his dignity. “I was… unprepared.”

“For?” Sypha prompted.

He winced, his throat squeezing around the words as he forced them out. “For you to stand up.”

“For us to stand up?” Trevor repeated, frowning in disbelief. He scratched his thumbnail across his stubbled cheek. “You saw us gather the dishes, we were all moving to leave the table: why would us standing up startle you?”

Alucard looked out from behind his hand at Trevor into his piercing, calculating eyes. He could hear the gears turning in his head, picking apart the knowledge he already had to piece together the events that transpired that night. All his oafish, drunken behaviour belied the shrewd mind that lay behind that façade. In this, Trevor wouldn’t let go. Like an old dog with a bone, he’d keep chewing on it till he got to the soft marrow at the centre. He had already discovered on his own enough of what had happened that night. All that remained were the small, sordid details that revealed how desperate and weak Alucard had been to get himself into that situation. His pride stung as they stared at each other; he swallowed the tight lump in his chest, and sighed, defeated.

“You stood over me,” he said finally, watching Trevor’s expression shift at his words. “For a moment, when you both stood up, I simply… forgot myself for a moment.”

Trevor exhaled heavily, his expression pinching tight. “You forgot yourself?”

“It was a momentary lapse in judgement, Belmont,” Alucard replied, trying to steer the conversation away from the precipice it risked falling over. “I imagine you have quite a vast catalogue of examples of your own.”

“Right, so there’s no chance you’ll “forget yourself” again if we happen to stand up from the table first, next time?” Trevor shot back, refusing to take Alucard’s bait.

Alucard opened his mouth to throw a smart remark back, before his teeth snapped shut with a click. A tightness settled in his chest when he stopped and considered the question.

He didn’t know.

He never considered he would react so violently to someone standing above him; there hadn’t been anyone around until now to cause the realisation. He didn’t want them to touch him, with the scars so red and angry, ridged across his skin. The nightmares remained, and he hadn’t gotten any more sleep than he did on a usual night. He groaned in the back of his throat, rubbing his forehead in distress. He didn’t know his own reactions. He couldn’t predict when his mind would trick him into thinking he was back in that night, forcing him to relive it over and over again.

He stayed silent, and that was answer enough.

Trevor exhaled heavily through his nose, a tight expression on his face.

“Right. Okay,” Trevor said. He braced his hands on his knees, and paused, looking at Alucard. “I’m standing up, now.”

Alucard scowled at him. “You do not have to tell me every move you are going to make.”

“Apparently, yes I do.” Trevor stood, dusting off his trousers. “And you are going to tell me where those Binding Rings are.”

“What? Why?” Alucard demanded, his voice cracking in panic. He jerked away from Trevor, staring up at him in suspicion. Trevor raised his hands in truce.

“Alucard, they shouldn’t stay lying around the castle,” Sypha reasoned. “They should go back into the Hold so no one else can touch them.”

Alucard looked at her with narrowed eyes, studying her: her face was open and honest, no trace of deception or lie. He didn’t trust it; he had already been deceived, how could he know it wouldn’t happen again? He saw them standing over him, their faces superimposed over Taka and Sumi’s, a silver ring in one hand each. He felt their weight latching onto his wrists as wires cut into his skin. He saw their cold expressions, their hatred for him as they raised the knives to pierce his broken heart. He saw their blood pouring over their chests as their necks split open.

He shook his head, his heart lurching at the image burning into his brain. “No.”

“Sorry, I must have misheard. What do you mean, “no”?” Trevor demanded. “Alucard, I don’t want those things lying around for anyone's use.”

“By anyone other than a Belmont, you mean?” The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, even though he knew it wasn’t true. Fear had latched onto his vocal chords, controlling them to spit the dark, twisted dread that haunted his thoughts since their return, a weapon against a perceived threat. If they saw the bodies, they’d think him a monster, if they saw how silver scarred him, they’d think him a monster. They had seen both, now; if they saw the wreckage of his room, they’d think him deranged like his father. With the Binding Rings, all he had to do was say something that would cause them to doubt him, to fear him, and it would happen again.

Still, regret did not overpower pride. Alucard refused to rescind the words, even under Trevor’s stony glare.

“You know what? Fuck you, Alucard, I’ll find them myself.” He turned and stomped towards the door.

“Don’t you dare!” Alucard launched himself from the floor with lightning speed across the kitchen, blocking Trevor’s path. He bared his teeth with a hiss, throwing his arms out to the side. Trevor stepped back in surprise, raising his fists to defend himself.

“Stop it! The both of you!” Sypha wedged herself between them, holding her hands out to cease, throwing a look to each in turn. “You are both behaving horribly to each other!”

“He thinks I’m going to fucking Bind him!”

“You are pushing in where you are not wanted!”

“Well, I’m sorry you bastard, for trying to fucking help you!”

“I don’t want your help! I don’t want anything from you.”

“Enough! Now!” Sypha repeated over their raised voices. A gust of wind spiralled between her poised fingers, whipping at them in warning.

Silence fell over the three of them, stuck in a standoff where neither party wanted to make the first move.

Guilt weighed heavy on Alucard’s shoulders, burning with shame that he had ruined the easy companionship they had shared over breakfast. He broke his eyes away first, tiny tremors wracking his body. His ears pounded with the hammer of his heartbeat, his vision hazy at the edges. A vice gripped his head, squeezing it at the temples without relent. He swallowed the sour taste in his mouth that had nothing to do with vomiting, but he could not find the words to rewind the minutes and retrieve that sense of warmth he had felt over breakfast.

Sypha sighed, relaxing her arms when neither of them were going to attack the other, and rubbed the back of her neck. “Alucard, you must know that we would never use those things on you. Trevor just wants to find them and return them to the Hold.”

Alucard kept his gaze turned away, folding his arms across his chest.

“You _do_ know we wouldn’t hurt you like that?”

Alucard said nothing: he couldn’t, even if he wanted to, there was nothing he could say to make them believe him. He was a vampire — half, anyway— and couldn’t ever be trusted to be telling the truth. Why would they believe him?

“No, he doesn’t,” Trevor answered for him, straightening. “He has hunter stress.”

“What?” Sypha and Alucard asked in unison, turning to stare at Trevor with mirrored looks of confusion.

“Hunter Stress,” he repeated. “I’ve seen it before, in some men who worked alongside my family. They’d leave on a hunt, and something would happen. They’d see something, or something would happen to them, and their bodies would come back, but their minds... It was like part of their mind was still in the midst of battle, fighting demons that weren’t there anymore. They would “forget themselves”, too, thinking they were somewhere else.”

“Except I am not a hunter, nor have I been in a fight since I stopped my father,” Alucard said, then corrected himself. “Apart from our skirmishes.”

“It didn’t always have to be a fight,” Trevor argued. “I once heard my father and uncles speaking of an old soldier who went out to protect a town from a monster. When he arrived, he saw the mutilated bodies of the town’s children burning in a pile. Seeing that broke something in him, after everything else he’d seen in his life. He could never stop seeing the burning bodies of those children for the rest of his life.”

“And what happened to him?”

“He killed himself,” Trevor said bluntly, and shrugged at their twin looks of shock. “People in my family’s line of work don’t retire, the only way you’re done is when you’re dead. Hunter stress… men have killed themselves because of it. Others get tricked by their own minds at the worst possible time. They think they’re in a different fight, distracted and confused, and they end up getting killed.”

“And you think this has happened to me?” Alucard challenged.

“They “forgot” themselves, too, Alucard,” Trevor repeated. Alucard shrugged, waving his hand as if to brush away the words from the air.

“It was a figure of speech,” he drawled. “I shall remember in future that anything other than simple sentences is beyond your understanding.”

“They had nightmares, too,” Trevor ground out, heckles rising at Alucard’s persisting insults. “They didn’t eat properly. They lashed out at their friends.”

Alucard scowled. “You’re projecting memories of your family’s stories onto me. A few similarities do not mean I have an illness of the mind, especially since, I will remind you, I haven’t been in a serious fight in several months.”

“Alucard, you were tied to a bed and assaulted twice, that would fuck with anyone’s he—”

Alucard cut him off with a punch to the face, launching at him and pinning him against the table. Trevor grappled with him, his forearms braced on Alucard’s chest, holding him back.

“Oh, for the love of—!” Sypha summoned a swirl of cold water around her and threw it over Alucard and Trevor. It rushed over them with such a force it soaked them through and startled them away from each other with a gasp. “Would you _please_ stop _fighting_ each other!”

Trevor and Alucard glared at each other, dripping water. Alucard pushed his sopping hair out of his face and shook his arms, sending water droplets flying.

“Stop acting like you know what happened that night,” he hissed, shivering from more than the cold water. “You don’t know.”

“I can figure it out, except for one thing,” Trevor retorted, wiping water from his face. “So maybe you can enlighten me! You’re scarred and having nightmares and seeing ghosts and don’t want to be touched, you killed them and put them on spikes on the front lawn, but you keep defending them whenever I say they assaulted you!”

“Stop saying that!” Alucard shrieked. He clenched his jaw, burying his face in his hands, digging his nails into his hair. He couldn’t breathe, the kitchen shrinking in around him, the walls crowding him as he struggled for air. Tears welled in his eyes, and he squeezed them shut, hating them. Hating his weakness. Hating his failing control. His head pulsed, banging inside his skull, a high keening ring spearing through it before he realised it was coming from him.

“Trevor, stop,” Sypha urged, pulling him away from Alucard. “That’s enough.”

He didn’t think he’d ever be able to find the words to express his gratitude to Sypha in that moment, battling to keep himself together before he descended into that mindless fog of lost time and space that ate his days into nothingness. He forced his breathing to calm, air whistling through his teeth as he sucked it into his lungs. Eventually his skin stopped feeling so tight, and the room stopped swaying around him. He sniffled, wiping his hands down his face, sweeping away the tears that escaped down his cheeks. Leaning against the table, he gripped the edge to keep himself upright, his gaze lowered to the floor.

Trevor sighed, sounding the way Alucard felt. “Look, Alucard—”

“I am not talking about this.”

Trevor grunted in frustration, clenching and unclenching his fists restlessly.

“Trevor, don’t,” Sypha repeated firmly, before he could say anything to reignite the argument. “That is enough.”

He looked between the two of them, scowling, before he threw his hands up in the air in resignation.

“Fuck this,” he cursed, and stomped out of the kitchen.

Alucard let him this time. He wouldn’t get to the room before Alucard should he try to find it, and Alucard didn’t have the strength to keep fighting with him. He sighed, massaging his forehead.

“Alucard?”

He raised his eyes to meet Sypha’s at the sound of his name, her gentle face shadowed with worry.

“Is there anything I can do for you, just now?”

He shook his head before he dared consider her offer; he didn’t want anyone close to him, not when he was like this. He hated that he knew Trevor and Sypha wouldn’t hurt him, he _knew_ they wouldn’t, at least not the way _they_ had. They had tried to avoid escalating again since the first night they arrived, while he kept lashing out and attacking them every time they were in the same room together longer than a few minutes. And yet… the insidious, sibilant voice whispering in the back of his head told him not to take the chance. He was a dhampir, anyone in their right mind would be cautious of him, ready for if — when — he snapped. Looking at himself, he wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out Trevor wanted to find the binding rings to use them on him again. He claimed he had some form of madness, after all, just like his father.

Sypha frowned, rubbing her arms, and glanced over her shoulder to the door where Trevor had exited.

“You should go to him,” Alucard said, pushing himself upright. “Some of my comments were to strike his pride.”

“You both could have spoken better,” Sypha said. “But I know what the two of you are like; hot headed inside those stone walls you put up, but I can see through all that.”

Alucard smiled faintly. “You have some quite thick walls to get through.”

“Are you speaking of Trevor, or yourself?”

Alucard’s smile faded, looking away. His eyes fell on the stained pot and the scattered remains of his dishes, and he winced.

“I’m afraid the tour of the greenhouses will have to be another day, if you still wish to view them,” he said, offering her a polite way to decline and avoid him without having to say as such. “I must clean this up and attend to some other matters.”

“Let me help, Alucard.”

“No. Please.” He held up his hand, as if to physically keep her away, but she hadn’t come nearer to him since she pulled Trevor back. “I… I need to be alone, right now.”

“I think that is the last thing you need,” she said. “But, if it is what you want, I will leave you alone. Alucard, please come and find us later, when you are ready? Please don’t avoid us.”

“Yes, of course,” he lied. He would rather never see them both until they came to their senses and left again. It would be safer that way. For them, or him, he wasn’t entirely sure.

He wondered if Sypha could tell he was lying, by the look on her face. Unable to do anything about it, she nodded and left the kitchen, but not before she looked back at him one more time, as if she wanted to stay with him. He ignored the ache that twisted in his chest, wishing it were true. She hadn’t stayed the last time. Neither of them had.

Why would this time be any different?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) PTSD has been documented since ancient times, even if it was never given a formal medical term until the 20th century. It has been called different things in the more recent past, usually related to the military and its veterans, but I couldn't find anything concrete that dated around the 1400s Eastern Europe where Castlevania is set. As such, I gave Trevor a term and ways of describing the symptoms ("hunter's stress", disassociation/flashbacks = "forgetting yourself") that would make sense in context of his experiences and his family's background. Sypha, being a Speaker and having travelled with her family collecting knowledge, will have come across other names for it, and Alucard's mother in her medical training will likely have another name for it.
> 
> 2) I'm of the opinion they all have PTSD, which manifests in different ways (you can totally see it in Trevor from the start, especially when he drops lines like: "I don't care, killing you was the point. Living through it was a luxury."). I wanted to switch the scene at the end from Alucard to Trevor, as he deals with his own feelings on what just happened, but I think it is better to give each of the three their own breathing space in writing in order to do as best as I can.
> 
> Thank you again for reading x


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